Following Jesus Will Cost You Everything

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Within the last two weeks, it has been my great joy to have the opportunity to meet with a man who is a brother of someone in our church, a physical brother of somebody here, who is dying of cancer. And by God’s good grace, I was able a couple of weeks ago, to sit in his hospitable room and God sort of kept everyone away and gave us a great window of time and he was interested in and curious and I was eager, and I got the chance to share the gospel with him. He had it before from his brother and from others but to see the gospel penetrate the heart and to see him respond to it, I was reminded again of the power of the gospel. It’s my joy to think that I believe I will see that man in heaven although he is soon to be with the Lord. But as I thought about that, I thought, you know, there are so many different ways in the New Testament in which the gospel is presented. Some of them are the outreach of grace to a person who finds himself at the utter extremity of himself and Jesus gives those wonderful declarations: “Come all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” For others, the gospel presentation is anything but easy—anything but initially attractive. That’s one of the passages we come to tonight. Jesus presents the gospel, and He presents it in a way where He makes it clear that the cost is extremely high.

I invite you to turn with me to Mark chapter 8. Mark chapter 8 and I will begin reading in verse 34:

And [Jesus] summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His father with the holy angels.”

Now the context in which Jesus speaks these words is very, very important. You remember that Jesus has taken His disciples up to Caesarea Philippi which is up from the Sea of Galilee in Bethsaida where He had performed a miracle, and they travel up really for time alone—time aside up in Caesarea Philippi. It was in this general area, and this is where the ancient city of Caesarea Philippi was and built around, but it says that He was in the villages surrounding this area. It was in this place that we hear Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah. The disciples have finally come to the decision that He is in fact the long-awaited HaMashiach, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Promised One. And in response to that, Jesus announces that He is going to build an assembly of followers, the church. But that will only happen after He suffers many things, after He is rejected by the leaders of the Jesus nation, after He is killed, probably by the Romans, is the insinuation, and after He is raised again by the Father on the third day. Jesus prophesies that all of that will happen and the clear implication of Jesus’ prophecy is that He is headed toward execution, probably a Roman execution. And the most well-known form of Roman execution was crucifixion. It is in that context that this extraordinary call to discipleship takes place. Jesus tells the crowd there that if they want to benefit from that mission He’s just described, a mission in which He will die as a substitute, if they want the spiritual benefits that His death will accomplish, it will be very costly. In fact, in these familiar words, we learn that following Jesus will cost you everything.

This is so contrary to the pop Christian message all around us, isn’t it? The health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, they say, “Come to Jesus and He will make you wealthy. Come to Jesus and He will give you a prettier wife. Come to Jesus and you will have health and you’ll be healed, and you won’t have any problems and you’ll have your best life now.” Jesus doesn’t promise that at all. And in fact, in this passage, Jesus lays down some very hard things. Some hard demands. Some difficult statements about just how hard it is going to be. So contrary to the spirit of our age whether it’s the health, wealth and prosperity gospel, or the sort of easy believism. You know, raise your hand, walk and aisle, sign a card, say a prayer. That’s all you have to do and you’re in. God will have to take you. And now you just don’t have to worry about it anymore. You can live however you want, and God will put up with it and when the time comes, He will let you into heaven. After all, the date is in front of your Bible.

In contrast to that kind of cheap grace and easy believism, stand Jesus’ words that we just read together. And let me tell you, Jesus’ words are as revolutionary today as they were to those who heard Him say them in the first century.

Now as we look at this text, I need to admit something to you. I need to admit at the outset that this is one of the Mount Everests of biblical revelation. In a sense, the air is too rarefied and too thin for us all to really delve into this text. There is always, in my mind, a sense of inadequacy: “What kind of human being can teach and anything eternal happen? Nobody. Certainly not me.” If there is anything accomplished of eternal value in the teaching of the Word of God, it is the Spirit of God using the Word of God. But there are certain texts where that becomes even more profound. So, it is with an attitude of dependance on the Holy Spirit that I want us to see tonight if we can at least partially sort of begin to climb the peaks of this amazing passage together.

Now to mark our progress through the passage, we really want to ask several questions and let Mark and our Lord answer them for us. The first question is to whom is it addressed? These amazing words, this call to discipleship, to whom is it addressed? Look at verse 34: “And He summoned the crowd with His disciples.” Obviously first of all, it is addressed to the crowd. Now the idea implied in the word “summoned” there is that Jesus called the crowd over. This is surprising. He has been with His disciples privately teaching them. But apparently even north up there in Caesarea Philippi, there were many who recognized Him, who had come down to Galilee and benefited from His ministry. And apparently, they had sort of lingered nearby hoping that in any moment He would begin to carry on a public ministry. And now Jesus intentionally calls them over. There is no indication that these people are already true followers; they seem like the rest of the crowds that Jesus had encountered both in the Gentile areas as well as in Galilee. There is an interest in Jesus, perhaps for purely selfish motives like those who wanted to be near Jesus because of the bread He fed them with. Perhaps others wanted to be healed or wanted someone they loved to be healed. And maybe some were truly interested in spiritual things, but they had not yet come to embrace Jesus as Lord. And maybe there were a few in the crowd there outside of the disciples who had already come to truly believe in Him. But for the most part, this crowd consisted of people who did not truly believe. They had some kind of interest in Jesus, but Jesus spoke these words to a large crowd of unbelievers.

Secondly, Jesus spoke these words clearly to His disciples. Matthew makes the point that Jesus specifically spoke to His disciples. Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after me, He must deny himself” and notice He said it to whom? To His disciples. So whatever Jesus means here, there is something to learn for those who have already come to believe in Jesus. In fact, Luke 9 says, “He was saying to them all.” This message is an important message for unbelievers and believers to hear—for anyone who has any remote interest in Jesus. Because Jesus is going to tell us how the Christian life begins, and how it continues. Both are the same. So, to whom is it addressed? To unbelievers, to believers, to the crowd, to His disciples.

The second question: What is all this about? What is this call, this summons, these amazing statements about? What is the subject? Well, notice verse 34: “He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me.” In all three synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke—it reads exactly the same: “If anyone wishes to come after Me.” The implication is that there were people in the crowd who were listening to Jesus who wished to come after Him. But what does that mean? What does it mean “to come after Jesus”? It’s kind of a play on words. First of all, it means “to become a follower or a disciple of Jesus.” Luke defines what this means. Turn over to Luke 14 and look at verse 26. Verse 25, “Large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, ‘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.’” So, Jesus here talks about someone coming to Him, someone wanting to be His disciple, look down in verse 33: “None of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his [own] possessions.” So, in other words, “to come to Jesus,” “to come after Jesus” is to become His disciple. But what does that mean? There are men at institutions, even local institutions like Dallas Theological Seminary, men who taught there at one time like Zane Hodges, who taught there were two levels, and there are others who teach this, but there are two levels, basically, of spiritual attainment in the gospels. You first of all, get saved. That’s accepting Jesus as “savior.” Later, some point later in your Christian life, you become a disciple. You weren’t a disciple when you got saved. At some point, you become a disciple and that is accepting Jesus as “Lord.” Not long after I came to Countryside, a man set across the table from me and said exactly that. He said, “That’s what this passage means. It means Jesus is inviting Christian people to now finally become one of His disciples. That it is two different things.” Is that what Jesus is saying here? Is He inviting Christians to a higher level? Does it mean that you are already saved and now you need to step to a higher level and become a disciple? Absolutely not! How do we know that? Well, let me just give you a couple of arguments. Take the Great Commission in Matthew 28: Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” He said your mission is to go make disciples and then baptize them and then you are to teach them everything I taught you. So, your real mission of evangelism is making disciples. In Luke 14:26, the verse we just read a moment ago, He says, “If anyone comes to Me.” He uses that expression as equivalent to being a disciple, and the expression “come to me” is universally used in the gospels to refer to coming to Jesus for spiritual salvation.

A third argument we could raise is that there are five sort of thematically parallel passages that all deal with the same sort of statement by Jesus. And in all five of them, it’s about forfeiting your soul or saving your soul. And, in fact, in John 12, it says, “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this will keep it [watch this] to life eternal.” This is about eternal life, having it or not having it. So, to sort of wrap it up, we could say this: the expressions “come after me,” “come to me,” “become My disciple,” “be saved,” “gaining eternal life” are all identifying the same spiritual event. When a person comes to faith in Christ—when they come in repentance to Christ seeking forgiveness, spiritual rescue and eternal life, that person becomes at the moment of salvation, a disciple or follower of Jesus Christ. That’s what Jesus is talking about in this passage. This is an invitation by Jesus to those in the crowd who do not know Him to come to Him in salvation—to become a true disciple or follower of His. To be a Christian is to be a disciple. The New Testament knows of nothing else. I said it was a play on words, though, this “come after Me” because it is also an invitation to join Christ in His death march. Remember Jesus has just told them He is about to go to Jerusalem and there He is going to be killed. He is essentially saying, “I am on a march to death. If you really want to be My disciple, then you have to be willing to join the death march to the place of execution. John Broda says, “Jesus designs to go forward like a man bearing His cross to the place of crucifixion so anyone who wishes to come along behind Him must do likewise.” For the unbeliever it’s an invitation to salvation. For the believer, it’s a call to join Jesus in His death march. We will talk more about that in a moment.

So, to whom is this passage addressed? It is addressed to the crowd of unbelievers as well as to the disciples. It has a message for both unbelievers as well as for believers. What is it about? It is about becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ, receiving forgiveness, being saved and all of those synonyms.

Now that brings us to the third question and the heart of what Jesus says here: What does it cost? What does it cost to become a true disciple of Jesus Christ? If you have any sense of your sin—if you have any sense of a desire to know God through Jesus Christ—this question matters to you. If you don’t, then it tells you everything you need to know about your true spiritual condition. If you really want to know God, you want the answer to this question: What does it cost? You see, salvation is all of grace. We’ve talked about Ephesians 2, you understand that. We can do nothing to earn our salvation. God extends it to us as a gift of His grace, but to come to Christ to receive that free gift will cost you everything. Look at verse 34: “He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.’” Jesus here announces three conditions for becoming His disciple. But they are really not new conditions. As you will see as we work our way through this passage, these three conditions are really just another way of looking at true faith and repentance. It's like true faith and repentance drawn into a picture. This is what it looks like when there is true faith and repentance in the life. So, these aren’t works added to faith and repentance. We can’t be saved by our works. Instead, these three conditions Jesus lays down here, are expositions of exactly what true saving faith and repentance look like in a life. The first condition is to deny yourself. Deny yourself. Verse 34, “He must deny himself.” Now let’s first be clear that this isn’t talking about self-abuse or ascetism. You are not going to somehow earn points with God by beating yourself up. Paul deals with that in Colossians. God is unimpressed. That is not what this is talking about at all. Nor is Paul saying that you should deny something to yourself. As R. T. France says, “Such self-denial that Jesus is calling for here is on a different level altogether from giving up chocolates for Lent or unfortunately as usually happens, giving up something you don’t even do.” “It is not,” France goes on to say, “It is not the denial of something to the self, but the denial of the self itself.” Did you get that? It’s not denying yourself something in a sense, it’s denying the person that you are. The Greek word for “deny” is used in Greek literature of denying a statement: You make a statement; I deny that statement. It’s denying a request: You make a request of me; I deny that request. But the primary way this word is used in the New Testament apart from these calls to discipleship, the primary way the word is used has to do with Peter’s denial of Jesus on the night of the crucifixion, the night before the crucifixion, the night of the arrest. The word literally means, “to renounce,” “to refuse to associate with,” “to have nothing to do with,” “to sever the relationship.” Jesus says, “If you want to become my disciple, you have to renounce yourself.” It’s like this: When you come to the end of yourself, when you come to the point where you’re really desiring to bow before Christ and to receive the gift of forgiveness, to enjoy the benefits of His redemption, you come to this place. You come to Him, and you say, “God, I renounce the person that I have been. I no longer want to have anything to do with the person I used to be.” It is like saying to God, “I am coming to you for salvation, and you need to know there’s nothing in me that you need to try to salvage. There’s nothing in me worth keeping.” It’s like the Spirit Jesus encouraged in the first beatitude, you remember in Matthew 5:3. He says, “Here’s how the progress toward the kingdom begins. It begins with a humble heart that says, ‘Blessed are the [what? Beggars] the poor in spirit.’” The Greek word is literally “beggars.” “Blessed are the beggars.” It’s not that they are poor. They don’t have quite enough to live on, but they make it by. No, these are beggars. “Blessed are the beggars in spirit.” Spiritual beggars. I don’t know if you have travelled anywhere in the world where there are true beggars. People who in some cases who have literally either themselves or had their families deform their bodies so as to evoke your sympathy. And all day, every day, they sit in a public place and all they do is plead with passer-byers to give them money. They have nothing to offer, they are selling nothing. They are not playing an instrument. They are not doing anything that would cause you to drop money in their little tin except saying, “I have nothing. Please extend grace to me.” That is how we come to God. We deny ourselves; we renounce ourselves. We say, “I am a beggar.”

Or it's like the tax gatherer in Luke 18 who was standing some distance away, Jesus said, even unwilling to lift his eyes to heaven, beating his breast, saying “God, be merciful to me the sinner. I have nothing to offer you. All I can do is renounce everything that I am, everything that I have done and plead for Your mercy.” That is what happened with Paul in Philippians 3, remember? We won’t turn there, but you remember the story. He had all these wonderful spiritual assets, and when he eventually came to himself under the conviction power of the Holy Spirit, he realized he had no assets at all. It was all refuse. It was all garbage. John Broadus writes, “As the Jews denied the Messiah” there’s a usage of this same word in Acts 3. “As the Jews denied the Messiah, so the follower denies self, will not have self for his ruler or his aim. He determines not to live according to his own inclinations but to do and bear whatever may be necessary in the course he has undertaken. He must resolve to live not for pleasure but usefulness, not for inclination but duty, not for self but for God. There is a total renouncing of self.” Listen, if you want to come to Christ, you have to come as a beggar with nothing to offer Him. In fact, you have to renounce the person you have become. You have to count everything that used to be an asset to you a loss. You have to come with the spirit of the tax collector, “God be merciful to me the sinner.”

Now what is the application of this first condition for those who are already Jesus’ disciples? Well, we continue to renounce ourselves and everything that’s ours. We renounce our desires; we renounce our ambitions; we renounce our plans. We have come to value Jesus more than ourselves. If I had to capture denying yourself, that would be it: Come to value Jesus more than yourself. Is that true of you tonight? I mean, honestly. I am not asking you, you know, what is the right answer. Everybody knows the right answer. I am asking you what is your answer?

There is a second condition: Take up your cross. Verse 34, “He must take up his cross.” In Luke 14, a thematically parallel passage, Jesus says, “Whoever does not carry his own cross.” And Luke 9 adds, “We are to take up our cross daily.” So, the Christian life begins by taking up one’s cross and it continues by carrying it daily. Now again, there are several things you need to understand this doesn’t mean. First of all, this is not a call for a deeper life, sort of mystical experience. There’s a theology out there, if you come across a book that talks about the deeper life, throw it away. It’s a mystical experience in which supposedly your own personality ceases to exist, and Jesus lives His personality through you. That is not what He is talking about here.

This is not talking about carrying trouble or burden through life. I hate to tell you this, but your cross is not your mother-in-law. She may be that is not what this is talking about. Your cross is not your child. Your cross is not some illness that you have. Your cross is not a spouse or the loss of a job or some other difficulty. Listen, in first century Israel, the Jews were very familiar with the cross. According to Josephus, the Jewish historian, a hundred years before Christ, there was a king named Alexander Janus who crucified eight hundred rebels in Jerusalem as he himself feasted. Josephus also tells us that in that period between the testaments, that terrible man named Antiochus Epiphanes crucified many Jews. After the death of Herod, the Great, in 4 BC, this is after the birth of Christ now, there was a riot after Herod’s death and the proconsul put down that riot and crucified two thousand Jews in Israel. So, the Jews knew what crucifixion was all about. And when Jesus mentioned the cross here, only one thing came to their mind: the cross as an implement of execution. This exact same phrase is used of Jesus’ literal cross in John 19 where it says, “They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross”—same expression. In that case a literal cross.

So, what was Jesus’ point? His point is that if you want to come to Him for salvation, if you want to become His disciple, you not only have to renounce yourself, you also have to value Jesus more than your own life. In Luke 14:26, Luke puts it this way: “If anyone come to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters,” stop there. Jesus is not saying that we ought to hate, remember we are told to love even our enemies. We are to love everyone. He is making us a Hebrew sort of point of contrast. He’s saying, “Your love for Me, if you want to come to Me and own Me as Lord and Savior, if you want to be a disciple of mine, then your love for Me should be so compelling that it makes your love for family look like hate by contrast.” And then He adds, “Oh and by the way, you have to have the same spirit even toward your own life.”

Now for some people, taking up their cross may mean physically dying for Christ. I think Jesus was making that point very clearly to the disciples themselves. All but one of them would die martyrs’ deaths and the one who didn’t, would die in exile. Jesus was saying you have to be willing to die for me. By the way, let me say that He is not asking you to have the courage to today to do that. In fact, I love the fact that the disciples said they were willing, you remember? In John 11, when Jesus said, “I am going to go raise Lazarus” and they said, “Wait a minute. The Jews there are trying to kill you. If you go there, they will kill you.” And Jesus said, “Well, I am going anyway because I am going to raise Lazarus. He’s there and I need to go.” And Thomas, my namesake, said to his fellow disciples in John 11:16, “Let us go also so that we may die with Him.” They were willing. But what happened when it was more than potential death? They ran in fear of their lives. But to come to Jesus, you have to be willing. You have to be willing to place Him before your own life. You see this in the life of Paul. Acts 21, Paul said, “Why are you weeping?” when they heard the prophecy. “For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” In Acts 20, “I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself.” I want to “finish my course” Christ has given me.

But it is not just Paul. Average ordinary Christians manifest this same spirit in Revelation chapter 12 verse 11, speaking of those who died in the midst of the tribulation period: “They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony,” that is, Satan, they overcame, “and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” This is what Jesus is calling for from all of us to be willing—to value His work and His name above our own lives. For most of us, it will never mean that we will actually be martyred for Christ.

So, what does it mean? To take up your cross daily always means bearing the shame of Christ. Always does. There is so many passages that relate to this in the New Testament. Let me just show you a couple. Look at Matthew 5. You know, Jesus begins the Beatitudes with “Happy are you if you are a beggar in spirit.” Look at how He ends it, verse 10: “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Blessed are you,” now it doesn’t just be death, torture, “Blessed are you” verse 11 “when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” Have you ever been talked about, insulted? Talked about behind your back because you profess Christ? That’s bearing the cross.

Look over at Luke 6. Again, the parallel passage to the one we just read in Matthew, in Luke 6, verse 22: “Blessed are you when men hate you and ostracize you,” have you ever been ostracized because you are a Christian? “Holy Joe. Holy roller.” I don’t know if they still use those names, but they did when I was growing up. “They will scorn your name as evil for the sake of the Son of Man. Blessed are you.” That’s bearing the cross.

Look over in John. The night before His crucifixion, Jesus prepares the disciples even more for this. John 15, verse 18: “If the world hates you,” and it will “you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” So, expect it. Verse 20, “A slave is not greater than His master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” Verse 22, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” So, they hate Me because of that.” “And therefore,” look down in chapter 16, verse 1, “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue,” they are going to kick you out of the religious establishment “but an hour is coming when everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.” To take your cross and follow Jesus means you have to be willing to die. It may not mean death. It may be insults and being ostracized and being ridiculed for your faith: “You really believe that stuff. You really believe the Bible? What kind of idiot are you You really believe in creation? God created the world in six days? You really believe that Jesus was raised from the dead? What is wrong with you? You a nut?” That is the cost. You have to be willing to pay that price. We have to value Jesus more than our own lives and our own reputations.

What does it cost? Deny yourself, take up your cross and there’s a third condition: follow Jesus. Verse 34, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must follow me.” We must value Jesus more than our will. To follow Jesus is to submit to His will. To go where He goes. To learn from Him. He’s the Master, I am the slave. He’s the teacher, I am the student. “Follow Me,” Jesus says. And when you look in the various places in the New Testament where that’s commanded, several things come out: First of all, if you are going to follow Jesus, it means a willingness to put Jesus and His kingdom first in your decisions. When you have a decision to make, young people, from who you are going to date and marry, to what career you are going to pursue, to where you are going to move your family, any decision. Do you first seek Jesus and His kingdom? Do you want that to be your first priority? That’s what following Jesus requires. He came to Matthew and said, “Follow Me” and what did it cost Matthew? His tax franchise. A lucrative life. A lucrative career. He gets up from it in a moment’s times, follows Jesus and he lost everything because you can bet somebody else was willing to sit down there and take that position. As Matthew 6 says, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.” If you are going to follow Jesus, you are have to have a willingness to put Jesus and His kingdom first in your decisions.

Secondly, it’s a willingness to serve Jesus wherever doing whatever He wants. “Follow Me.” You remember, after His resurrection in John 21, He says that to Peter. Peter is all worried about what is going to happen John: “Well, you know, is he going to live? What is going to happen to him?” And Jesus says, “Don’t worry about Him. You follow Me. I have a story for your life. You do what I want you to do. And it is different that it is for John.” And that is how it is for us. David Livingston, who braved Africa as a great missionary for the sake of Christ, said this in his famous prayer: “Lord send me anywhere only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever any ties but the tie that binds me to your service and to your heart.” Have you ever said that to God? Have you ever prayed that prayer to God: “Lord send me anywhere only go with me. Wherever you want me, I will be there. Lay any burden on me only sustain me. Lord, whatever you want from me in life, whatever you have for me, as long as you sustain me, that is what I want. Sever any ties except the ties that bind me to your heart and to your service.” Is that your heart? That’s the heart of a Christian. That’s the heart of a disciple. Have you said that to God? I remember when I first came across that, I remember even the circumstances when I said that to Christ myself. I was in college, a junior in college, for me it meant changing majors from law to Bible. And I finally bowed my will to His. My prayer is that there will be people here in our church who will express a willingness to serve Jesus wherever doing whatever He wants. He might want you right here doing exactly what you are doing. That isn’t the point. The point is are you willing?

The third thing following Jesus means is a heart of obedience to His revealed commands. To follow Jesus is to own Him as Lord and teacher—to do whatever He wants in service of Him and in obedience to Him. This is really just an explanation of what repentance and true faith looks like. To be a follower of Jesus will cost you everything. You will have to renounce the person that you are. You will have to take up a cross, that is, an implement of execution, be willing to give up your life if necessary. But certainly be willing to bear the reproaches and scorn that go with being a follower of Jesus Christ. And you will have to follow Him. Put His kingdom and Jesus first in your decisions. Have a willingness to serve Him wherever, doing whatever He wants and a heart of obedience to His revealed commands. Are you willing to do that? I mean, really, are you willing to do that? It will cost you everything.

There is another question. It comes in the rest of this passage. Why? Why pay such a price? Note that the next four verses, verses 35 to 38 begin with the word “for.” So, what you have here is a series of explanations by our Lord. In these verses, He is explaining, and He is using the language of finance—the language of the marketplace. Notice verse 36: “profit,” “gain,” “forfeit.” Verse 37: “give in exchange.” All of those are finance words. Jesus is telling us in these verses why it is worth it in spite of the cost. It’s a huge cost. It costs you everything. So, why is it worth it? Jesus is saying, “Do the math and you will conclude that the high cost of discipleship is worth it. Why? First of all, because it is the only way to save your soul. It’s the only way to save your soul. Verse 35: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will for My sake and gospel’s will save it.” This verse describes two different approaches to life. One approach is to attempt to save life for yourself and for your own benefit. This person says, “I don’t like the high cost of following Jesus. There are things I want to do. There are pleasures I want to enjoy. I am just not willing to give up all of that to follow Jesus. I refuse to follow Him if those are the conditions. I am want to preserve my personal interest so I will just stay away from His self-sacrificing demands.” And folks there are lots of people like. When they hear what the cost is, they say, “No thanks. You know, if it was just praying a prayer. If it was just a little fire insurance to get out of hell, then OK, count me in. But that is too high of a price. There are things I want to do. There are people I want to see. There are things I want to achieve. There are experiences I want to have, and I am not interested in that.”

Ironically, Jesus says, “The person who takes that approach, who tries to preserve or save life for himself or herself, will lose it. The word “lose” here is the normal Greek word for “destroy.” Try to save your life for yourself, and you will destroy it. What does that mean? Well, you may gain happiness and pleasure in this life, but you will end up losing your soul forever. You try to save your body and your temporary life here and all the pleasures and all the things you want, and you will lose your spiritual eternal soul. In fact, in Luke 9, Jesus puts it like this: “What is a man profited if he gains the whole and loses or forfeits himself?” You lose yourself.

The other approach in verse 35, the other approach to life is to be willing to deny yourself, to be willing to take up your cross, to be willing to follow Jesus, and when you do that, you lose your self-oriented life here. It perishes. It is destroyed. You experience the loss of everything that people long for in this temporal life. You lose your ambitions, your dreams, your plans. It is lost in the sense that it is spent for Jesus and the gospel. Notice that is what He says. He says in verse 35, “for My sake and the gospel’s.” You lose it in complete devotion to Christ, in serving in the kingdom, in spreading the gospel. But when you are willing to deny yourself and follow Christ, here's the irony: you end up saving your life. Not that selfish, self-focused, self-absorbed life that you said “no” to, that you renounced, but a different kind of life altogether: eternal life. A higher quality of life. In fact, look over at John 12. Jesus describes it there. John 12 verse 24: “Truly, Truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Now He transitions because He was talking about Himself, verse 23, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” He was talking about His own death. And then He transitions to us, verse 25: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world,” in other words, all the ambitions and things that people pursue in this world, if he hates that and doesn’t pursue that, he will “keep it to life eternal.” “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” It is a totally different kind of life. You say “no” to everything people are after here, in order to gain eternal salvation. It is the only way to save your soul. Jim Elliot, the missionary martyr who lost his life in the 1950’s trying to reach the Alca Indians down in Ecuador said this, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” It is not a both/and kind of choice you are faced with here. It’s an either/or. It makes sense to pay such a price because it is the only way to gain true eternal salvation.

Secondly, it makes sense because everything else is worthless in comparison. Verse 36: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” Jesus’ point is that whatever it cost to follow Him it’s a brilliant investment. Jesus says to assume for a moment that the unthinkable is possible. Think about this: Jesus says to assume that you could truly put everything that everybody in the world is trying to get in your bank account, in your asset column. You could truly put the entire world in your pocket. Now by “world” here, He is not talking about the creation. He is not talking about the trees and the grass and all of that. It’s the same “world” that appeared to Demas in 2 Timothy 4: “Demas having loved this present world.” It's the world system, the organized system run by Satan. John describes it like this: “All that is in the world.” Here’s what’s in the world, here’s what people are after: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. That’s what Jesus is talking about when He talks about the world. As one author puts it, “All that your passions hunger for, all that your eyes covet, all that your pride demands, what if you got all of it?” Think for a moment about that. “Everything your passions hunger for, everything your eyes covet, and everything your pride demands, what if you got all of it?” This author goes on to say, “What if you had every lust fulfilled? Every vision acquired? Every self-aggrandizement available? Every honor won? What would it matter? If you got all of that in time, and lost your soul eternally?” What do you really want out of life? Think about that for a moment. If there were really no consequences for your behavior and choices, I want you to be honest for a moment. If it really didn’t matter, if there were no consequences and you could have whatever you want, what would it be? Would it be fame? Would it be wealth? Would it be pleasure? Would it be sexual gratification? Would it be just personal peace? Just being left alone with no trouble and just to have fun. Maybe it is a nice house. A loving spouse. Whatever. Whatever it is that you most want in life, Jesus says, “If you had that and everything else you wanted in this life, but you end up losing your soul for eternity, it’s a fool’s bargain. If you forfeit your soul, you end up lost forever.” Whatever it is that you think you want that seems so important to you, it is absolutely worthless compared to what Jesus is offering.

The word “profit” here implies a business investment. What do you do when you make an investment? You subtract the money you spent from the money you made and what is left over is your profit. And when you subtract what you have lost in this case, your soul, from what you have gained, the whole world, there is nothing left. There is no profit. You are in the red. You have spent more than you have made. So, it makes no sense. Whatever it is that you want, it’s worthless compared to your soul.

Why pay such a high price? Thirdly, because your soul has supreme value. Everything else is worthless and your soul has supreme value. Look at verse 37: “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” There is nothing you could ever gain even if it was the sum total of what every human being in the entire world wants. Even if you could have all of that, that wouldn’t equal the value of your soul to you. As Psalm 49 says, “No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him—for the redemption of his soul is costly and he should cease trying forever.”

A fourth reason it’s OK to pay such a high price is because Jesus will one day be your judge. Verse 38, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” We will look at that verse Lord willing more closely next week, but I just want you to get the big point: the One who is making these extraordinary demands is the very One who you will stand before someday and who will determine your eternity. So, the cost is more than worth it.

There’s one more reason it’s reasonable to pay such a high price, it’s not in this text, but I have to take you there. Turn over to Matthew 13. It’s OK to pay such a huge price because Christ is infinitely valuable. Jesus gives two parables, two very brief parables: verse 44, “The Hidden Treasure”; verses 45 and 46, “A Costly Pearl.” Christ is the treasure. Christ is the pearl. Now look at the parables: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Here’s a guy who is really not looking for anything. He’s walking through a barren field, and he stumbles across this treasure. And it’s huge. It’s of infinite value to him and so he is so overjoyed, he reburies the treasure and he goes, and he sells everything he has and goes and buys that field because he sees the infinite value of the treasure he has found.

In verse 45, again, “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant.” In this case, he is seeking fine pearls. He’s looking and we know from other places that if he is seeking, it is not because of him, it’s because the Spirit is at work in his heart. “But upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” He cashed in everything he owned in order to get the necessary money to buy this one pearl because it was so infinitely valuable. The pearl, in this case, is Christ. The treasure hidden in the field is Christ. And when you find Him after searching for Him or when you stumble across Him, both by divine plan and providence in the Spirit’s work, either way, when you come recognize the incomparable value of Christ, you are willing to let everything else go to get Him. You are willing to sell it all. Get rid of it all. It doesn’t matter. My life? Sure, if I can have Christ. If He demands that I leave the ones I love, OK. If I have to change jobs, OK. If I become a missionary on His behalf for the sake of the gospel, give up a lucrative career, OK. Lord, whatever it is You want, Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever any tie, except the tie that binds me to your heart and to your service. Why? Because of the value of Christ. Listen, here’s the key: you will never deny yourself, you will never be willing to take up your cross, you will never be willing to follow Christ until you see by the work of the Spirit of God, the infinite value of Jesus Christ. He is more valuable than whatever else it is that you have been seeking, than whatever else you have been living for. And until you see that, none of this will happen. And it’s all of grace, isn’t it? We don’t deny ourselves. We love and treasure ourselves. By nature, we don’t take up our cross, we do everything we can to protect ourselves. We don’t follow Jesus, we follow our own desires and we do whatever we want. Only God can make that change in our hearts.

So, what are the lessons very briefly? I’m sorry, I’ve taken longer than I intended. What are the lessons that we can learn from this text? If you are already a true follower of Jesus Christ, here’s the lesson: when Jesus first came to Peter in Mark 1, Jesus said to Peter and Andrew, “Follow Me. Leave your nets, leave your business and come do what I want you to do.” That really marked the beginning of their lives as followers of Him. But at the very end of the story, the same thing happens again. Look at John 21. I mentioned this earlier. John 21 verse 18: here’s after the resurrection. They are in Galilee and Jesus says to Peter after He tells him to take care of His sheep, verse 18, “Truly, Truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you and bring you where you do not wish to go. Now He said this signifying what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ‘Follow Me.’” I’m telling you what is going to happen to you, follow me. It will mean your death but follow me. “Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved [this is John] following them; the one who had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, ‘Lord, who is the one who betrays You?’ So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, ‘Lord, and what about this man?’ [what is going to happen to him] Jesus said to him, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!’” Listen, that is what Jesus is saying to everyone of us. You don’t worry about your brother’s story. You don’t worry about the one sitting next to you, the story they have. You worry about My story for you: “Follow Me.” This is to Peter who has long been a disciple; long been a true believer in Jesus Christ. And so, if you are in Christ, that is what Jesus would say to you. Listen, you be willing to do whatever it is I have providentially planned for you.

If you are not a disciple of Jesus Christ, the application comes in Luke 14, turn there with me. Luke 14, these are hard things to hear, and Jesus knew they were hard things to hear. He did it on purpose. And so, in Luke 14, after He gives the similar command, a similar statement about the cost of discipleship, verse 27: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” He then says this: “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?” You are going to build something on your house, you sit down and make sure you have enough money to finish it. “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’” Same thing happens to a king trying to wage war, he considers if he has enough men to fight and to win. Or verse 32, “While the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.” What is Jesus’ point? It is back up in verse 28, underline those three words: “Calculate the cost.”

If as you sit here tonight, you really are not a true Christian, you are not a disciple of Jesus Christ, He is not your Lord. You have not come to the place where you have renounced yourself, where you have been willing to lay down your life for the sake of Christ. Where you are willing to follow Him. Then don’t do it quickly and easily. Jesus says, “You better calculate what it really is going to cost you.” Because that is what it will cost. But the good news is it is worth it because you give up all of that and you get the treasure, the pearl.

Let’s pray together. Father, thank you for this passage. Our simple survey of it tonight seems so inadequate to do it justice, but I pray, oh God, that You would take Your Word, you would take by Your Spirit the words of Christ and burn them into the hearts of every person here. Lord, I pray for those here tonight whom I know don’t know you. They have never been willing to come in faith and repentance. They have never been willing to deny themselves, to renounce themselves, to take up their cross as an implement of execution, to acknowledge their willingness to die and then to follow you. Father, may this be the night when they sit down after they leave this place and calculate the cost. When they do the math and see the infinite value of Christ, that it’s worth it. Father, I pray for those here tonight who are believers. Help us to recognize the cost of discipleship for us. Lord, may every one of us, be willing to take up these conditions as our own. To live under them now that we have come to know Christ as Lord and Savior. Father, I pray that we would be able to say, “We will follow you.” We pray in Jesus’ Name. Amen.