9-6-09 Cost of Following Jesus

By Calvin Maxwell

How many of you, at some point in your life have heard a statement similar to

this–”Salvation is a free gift offered through Jesus Christ, there is nothing you can do to

earn it, and it doesn’t cost you anything”? Or “If you accept Jesus as your savior you will

get eternal life and will go to heaven when you die”? I know that most of us have

probably heard something very similar and many of us have said something to that affect

when talking with someone about having a relationship with Christ. I am here to tell you

this morning that if those statements are a bunch of Christian BS. I know what you may

be thinking right now, but I think it will become more clear as we make our way through

the service this morning.

There are parts of those statements that are true, but I think that those statements

give a very watered down view of what being a follower of Christ is all about.

 Let’s start

by claiming the truth that is contained in those statements before we go on to talk about

what isn’t there that should be. First of all it is true that salvation in Jesus Christ is a free

gift in that there is nothing that we can do to earn it. There is nothing that we can trade

for it, and no amount of money can buy it. We do not have the power in and of ourselves

to make salvation happen. That is what makes Christ’s sacrifice so amazing and so

essential. He gave up everything so that we could have the opportunity for God to view

us as righteous. But there is a dichotomy that exists in the statement about Salvation

being a free gift that we will get into in just a couple of minutes. The second statement,

when taken at face value, is also true. The bible is very clear that as followers of Christ

we will go to heaven for all eternity. So don’t worry, I am not here to tell you this

morning that heaven does not exist. I will, however, shatter the premise of that statement.

Now what is wrong with these statements? Well let me start by telling you a little

story. One day this guy, we’ll call him Jeff, was sitting at his job and working away. He

had a very important job working for the most powerful government in the world at that

time. His job was to collect taxes. Obviously nobody likes paying taxes, so he was not

very well liked. He was considered by many to be a traitor, because the empire that he

collected taxes for had conquered the country that he was originally from, and his fellow

countrymen, for the most part did not want to be a part of the vast empire. And then for

one of their own to collect taxes for the conquering nation was the ultimate betrayal in the

eyes of many of his countrymen. But he had friends. Mostly because he was paid well

for what he did. Not only was he paid well, but he would often charge people extra and

keep it for himself. The government he worked for didn’t mind and Jeff had built up

quite a life for himself.

But you did not want to cross the people that Jeff worked for. They were ruthless

to the core. They were experts in torture and made it a practice to make examples out of

all that crossed them. So when a rather famous person walked by one day and asked him

to become one of his followers he knew that it would cost him greatly. I mean this guy

wanted him to just leave his post and come with him. No chance to put in a two week

notice or go through the standard operating procedure when it came to giving up your job,

this guy, was moving on. He was a bit of a rock star and had told Jeff that he saw

something in him that showed promise. Yes if Jeff was going to go with this stranger the time for action was now. And so I am sure that it was with a bit of uneasiness that he left

the booth that everyone had to pass by in order to pay taxes and followed this mysterious

stranger that he had heard so much about. “After all, what does he see in me” Jeff

thought. “I sure hope that it is worth what this is going to cost me. My boss is not going

to be happy after all and you know what happened to the last guy that ticked him off.”

I am sure that most of you are aware that I am taking a few liberties with a story

that is given to us in the Bible. This is the story of Matthew who was one of the twelve

disciples and is essentially the story of Jesus calling him to follow him. I try to imagine

what that must have been like to have a person that you have heard a whole lot of rumors

about, but you had never actually spent time with or even met ask you to give up

everything you know and follow him. I don’t believe for a moment that Matthew (or any

of the other disciples) had this notion that Salvation was free and didn’t cost anything.

Lets take a look at this story in the Bible. It is recorded three different times, but we are

going to look at Mark 2:13-17.

13.0nce again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he

began to teach them. 14.As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the

tax collectors booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

I would like to pause right there for a minute and take you back into my own

weird imagination. If! had been Matthew (Levi) I would have wanted Jesus to get as far

away from there as possible as fast as we could. First of all, my boss is going to come

looking for me and wondering why I have deserted my post. There will be hell to pay for

that. Not only that, but we are going to run into someone that I know eventually, and

Jesus surely doesn’t want to meet the people I hang around with. After all, the “good”

people wouldn’t be caught dead with someone like me. No, it is best if we just make a

clean break. After all, if there is one thing that I have learned from the church it is that if

becoming a Christian is going to cost you anything it is going to be your friends. Yep,

when you become a Christian you need to ditch your old friends and only hang out with

“church people” so that you are not corrupted by the world. This is not what Matthew did

though. Let’s read on.

15.While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and

“sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.

16. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with “sinners” and

tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and

‘sinners’?” 17. On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a

doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

So Matthew did not run away from his past life, instead he threw a party and

invited all of his friends to meet this Jesus. Now I am sure that he did not keep all of his

friends, but they all had the opportunity to meet Jesus and make their own choice about

him. He cared for those people and wanted to give them an opportunity to share the same

experience with Jesus that he had.

The reason that 1think that the statement about salvation being a free gift is a

bunch of BS is that it implies that there is no cost involved in following Christ. You see

this in the way many people go about living their lives even after “accepting Jesus.” Yes

they may go to church every week and get some new friends, but they are for the most

part unwilling to sacrifice to see God’s mission on earth completed. Even how they view

church is all about them. Jesus did not try to hide the fact that there was a great cost

involved in following him. Let’s take a look at the passage that got me started in thinking

this way.

Luke 9:57-62 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will

follow you wherever you go.”

58 Jesus replied “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has

no place to lay his head.”

59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”

But he replied, “Lord first let me go and bury my father.”

60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the

kingdom of God.”

61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to

my family.”

62 Jesus replied, ”No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service

in the kingdom of God.”

Jesus seems to be rather harsh to these would be followers. He is telling them not to bury

their fathers or say goodbye to their families, he even tells one guy that to follow him may

cost him everything to the point that he will not have any of the normal creature comforts.

What seems harsh because we have not thought of following Christ as associated with

cost, 1think is Jesus just being honest with people on the front end rather than pulling a

bait and switch. Here is the deal, whether you believe that following Christ is going to

cost you or not, God always requires us to give up ourselves when we enter into a

relationship with him. 1think that many people go into a relationship with God thinking

that it is totally free and then become disillusioned once God starts asking them to

sacrifice for him. They feel as if they’ve been duped and get stuck right where they are

at.

1remember one year around Christmas time 1was in one of the electronic stores

looking for a gift for someone. I was shopping with a friend and we mosied around the

store for probably fifteen minutes looking at various things. During that whole time we

did not see or hear from a single employee, and it wasn’t because they were all that busy.

The place was relatively calm for whatever reason. Then we decided that since we were

there we may as well dream a little, so we went into the room where all the big screen

TV’s and high end stuff was kept. It was as if we had set off an alarm because within

thirty seconds of crossing through the door into that room there was a sales representative

there asking us if we were interested in a big screen today. 1think his exact quote was

“You guys interested in a big screen today? My manager has a hot pen and is ready to

make a deal.” 1 don’t remember whether 1 actually said it or not, (my buddy remembers

that I did, I don’t think I did) but my response was something to the effect that “Your

managers pen is hot? Well you better hurry up and tell him to put it down because he is

going to burn himself waiting on us to buy one.”

While this is not a true bait and switch, this guy definitely had alter ear motives.

Even if I had been in the market for a “big one” I would not have bought from him that

day because the way we were ignored until he thought he had a big sale left a bad taste in

my mouth. I believe that the church does something similar when we downplay the cost

of being a Christ follower. There are many passages in the bible where Jesus makes no

bones about the cost associated with being his follower. I would like to just highlight one

more.

Matthew 19: 16 Just then a man come up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good

things must I do to get eternal life?”

17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is

good. It you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

18 “Which ones?” he inquired.

Jesus replied, “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false

testimony, 19 honor your father and mother and love your neighbor as yourself.”

20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the

poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22.When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth ….

27. Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What will there be for

us?”

28 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man

sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones,

judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or

sisters of father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times

as much and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and many

who are last will be first.”

Jesus makes it no secret that we have to be willing to give up everything in order

to follow him. Sometimes I think that we believe that God only calls certain people to

sacrifice, like Pastors or those he calls into full time ministry, but I think that the essence

of being a Christ follower is all about sacrificing what is important to you in order to join

a greater cause. I would like to share a couple of examples from my own life of times

when God has called me and my family to sacrifice.

The first was a time that he asked us to sacrifice some of our finances. My

neighbor across the street from me is in a wheel chair and has no real expectation of

getting out. He is paralyzed from the waist down because of a disease he contracted

through a mosquito bite. He does not have central air, and money for him is always tight.

He had two window air units in his house and these are what keep him cool through the

summer. A few years ago, the window unit that was in his bedroom went out and he

shared with me that he was having trouble sleeping. There were some window units on

sale and we felt that God was telling us to buy him a window air conditioner to replace

the one that was broken. Now, it is not like God called us to sacrifice a years wages, but

it still cost us some money. I can tell you that this neighbor was blown away by this act

of generosity.

Another thing that God has asked my family to sacrifice is our privacy. There has

been three different occasions where God has called us to allow people to live in our

basement. The first time, our basement was not even finished yet. Actually, come to

think of it that cost us a fair amount of money as well. There were many nights till

midnight or later cutting in an egress window, framing walls, hanging and finishing

drywall, painting, hanging doors and getting carpet put in. This was because the church

that we were attending was moving a person into the area to help with our ministry and

we felt God calling us to provide them with a place to stay. I can say that it is a little

strange to share your house with another person.

The second time God called us to give up our privacy was even weirder. He

asked us to house a family of four. We were already friends with this family, but when

you share close proximity with them it takes on a whole new level. The weird thing for

me, was that it never felt to me like we were being intruded upon. In fact we are still very

good friends with that family.

I know these are not earth shattering things like God called me to give up

everything and go to Africa or Iraq to serve him, but these are definitely sacrifices that we

have made because God has called us to.

I don’t want to leave you thinking that the whole experience of following Christ is

just about us giving stuff up with no rewards. In fact that is the problem that I have with

the second statement. The whole focus of the point of following Jesus has nothing to do

with this life, but focuses entirely on going to heaven when we die. I view heaven as an

added bonus at the end, not the main benefit of following Jesus. There are many benefits

that we could highlight here, but I want to give you a couple that have meant a lot in my

life and hopefully will mean a lot to you. I am going to just touch on these briefly

because we could do a whole series on these benefits.

First, I believe that when we follow Christ we get a place to belong. Jesus accepts

us for who we are where we are at. In fact, God created you just the way you are. He

doesn’t ask us to change to follow him, although as we follow him we will inevitably

change. I think that in the church we are supposed to find this acceptance as well. I

know that often times we find judgment in the church, but this is not what it is supposed

to be like. I believe that every human being desires to fit in and be important to others,

and this need is filled in spades in Christ. We get a relationship with the creator of the

universe and the creator of ourselves who knows us better than we know ourselves. He

desires the best for us and has designed for us to live in community with one another.

Secondly God calls us to join him in a great mission. It is not all about just

having a relationship, being a follower of Christ is about action as well. The bible is the

story of God’s interaction with us throughout the course of history and he calls us to be a

part of that story. He took twelve people and called them to do the impossible, change

the world with his love. That is why we are here this morning, is because those twelve

guys, along with others that they enlisted and God called, so radically impacted the world

around them that people flocked to them. It became such a powerful movement that the

government of the time stopped fighting it and endorsed it. We are called to that same

mission. Joining this mission gives me a sense of purpose. I do not have to wonder what

the point of my life is, I view it through the prism of the mission that God has asked me

to join. This mission is not easy, but it is the greatest thing that you will ever engage in.

It is way bigger than me, or even New Community. It is only when we partner with our

God and Savior that this mission can be accomplished. Like I said, a whole other

message.

So yes, following Christ has a cost, but the benefits I believe make us whole

human beings, rather than broken shallow ones. I can say from experience that life is so

much better when you live for something other than yourself.