MK040 Sermons
The Cost of Discipleship (Audio)
Thank you Tim and it is great to be back at Coca-Cola this morning. Good morning, Coca-Cola Church. It's great to see you. And as Tim mentioned, we were here last July. We had the privilege of speaking, I think, for consecutive Sundays in July. And that was back in the old building. In fact, I was talking with Pastor John before the service this morning. He gave us a tour of the building. And I think back then is when you were finalizing your decisions as to purchase this facility and then know what you're going to do with it. And I just got to tell you, I think it's a privilege and honor. It's a God thing that God brought us back here this July to see what God has done. Amen. I mean, oh, that's terrible. Amen. I mean, you guys got to be excited about what God has provided for you here. I think it's just a phenomenal facility. This is definitely a Jehovah-Giara. God did this. God provided and He is building His Church here at Coca-Cola. So we rejoice with you in that. I mean, a facility. I know it's just brick and mortars and paint and curtains and all that. But it is a place where you can gather and minister the gospel and have ministries that touch people's lives. And isn't that really what it's all about? To just be more effective in building Christ's Church right here in this area. So I commend you for that. I celebrate with you. We are thrilled to be back and see what God has done. Last July, I wasn't able to bring my wife with me any of those four Sundays. But she is here today. My wife Colleen, I won't make her stand because she gets embarrassed when I do that. She's sitting on the front row. She is my sweetheart. She's been my partner in ministry for 37 years. We were talking about the fact that we actually started in ministry at High Point Baptist Chapel in Gigertown, which is right down the road from here, which is where Pastor John did his internship before he came here to Coca-Cola. So there's a lot of tie-ins. I mean, we were driving down here today. There was a lot of reminiscing and just thinking about how God established our marriage and how God in those formative stages of ministry just really brought some really neat blessings into our lives and allowed us to connect with some people. So it's just amazing for us to be here today, and I'm just grateful for the opportunity to share with you again. So we are going to be talking this morning about the cost of discipleship from Luke 14. If you have your Bibles and you want to turn there, that's where we're going to bank today. Settle in in Luke 14. If you don't have a Bible, most of the verses I think are going to be up on the screen. You'll be able to follow along if you want to share with somebody. And I understand that you've been kind of doing a series on some of the parables of Jesus, right? And they are great teaching times. In fact, I was thinking as I was going through my notes, it's pretty easy to preach in the parables because they happen to be written by the master teacher of the universe, you know? Jesus got it right. He knew how to communicate to the hearts of men and women, boys and girls. And the parables are such a neat portion of the gospel because Jesus was the master illustrator. I mean, he could take a mustard seed, or he could take a tree, and he could turn that into an entire object lesson that just made sense. And I hope that that's what you're getting out of the parables as you study them together as a church. Jesus loved to use object lessons that were right there in front of his disciples' eyes, right there in front of people in their lives and their daily activities that they could connect spiritual truth in a way that impacted them, and they left full. They left with an understanding of how to apply that and what to do. Well, the passage we're going to be dealing with today in a sense is not a parable, but it's for many parables that are kind of rolled into one. A parable always takes an object lesson, and it usually starts where Jesus would say the kingdom of heaven is like this, or it's similar to this. Well, he's not going to do that today, but this is kind of tucked in between the parable of the great banquet and then the parable in chapter 15 of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the prodigal son, and it's almost like he takes a little bit of parentheses time to teach these four mini object lessons about the cost of discipleship. Now, what do we mean about the cost of discipleship? What does it cost to be a disciple? I read this story. Maybe it will help you to relate. This story is called no cost to great for mama. How many of you you want, especially on Mother's Day or whatever, you just kind of want. There's no cost too big to please mama, whether mama is your mother or whether you call your wife, the mama of the home, no cost to great for mama. And I read this story. I thought I'd share it with you. It's about four brothers who left home for college. They became successful doctors and lawyers, and they prospered. Some years later, they chatted after having dinner together, and they discussed the gifts that they were able to give to their elderly mother who lived far away in another city. The first brother said, you know what, guys, I had a big house built for mama. Yeah, they were pretty impressed with that. Second son said, yeah, but I had a hundred thousand dollar theater built in her home. Now, I would like to see that theater, especially when it comes Super Bowl time, World Series, et cetera. The third brother said, well, I had my Mercedes dealer deliver a brand new car to mama. Man, how do you top all these? Fourth brother said, well, guys, you know how much mama loved reading the Bible. And you know, she can't read anymore because she can't see very well. So I met this preacher who told me about a parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took 20 preachers, 12 years just to teach this parrot, and I had to pledge to contribute a hundred thousand dollars a year for 20 years to the church. That's a little expensive, but it was worth it. And mama just has to name the chapter in verse and the parrot will recite that favorite passage of scripture. The other brothers were very impressed, and after the holidays, mom sent out her thank you notes to each of the brothers. Here's what she said, she wrote first to Milton. Milton, the house you build is so huge. I live in only one room. I have to clean the whole house. Yeah, thanks anyway. And Marvin, I'm too old to travel. I stay home. I have groceries delivered, so I never use that Mercedes. The thought was good, though. Thank you very much. And Michael, you gave me that expensive theater with surround sound. It could hold 50 people, but all my friends are dead. I've lost my hearing. I'm nearly blind. I'll never use it. But thank you for the gesture just the same. And now, dearest Melvin, you are the only son to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift. The chicken was delicious. Thank you very much. No cost to great for mama. Give her the best, the best that you can give. Well, Jesus, in a sense, is going to talk about no cost to great to be a follower. Now, this is kind of one of those oxymoron passages because we just finished singing about the fact that Jesus bought all on the cross for us, didn't he? We didn't have to pay a thing for our salvation. Eternal life is free to us. At a great cost, by the way, to God the Father, who gave His only Son, the precious, the holy one, the only one who could secure our salvation. But to us, it was free. Jesus understands that, but He also understands that a fully devoted follower of Him, one that is going to be all in for the gospel. There will definitely be a cost of discipleship. So, I want us as we unpacked this passage this morning, first of all, to consider these two key questions. An essential question, first of all, is this, what kind of commitment do I need to be a true all-in follower of Jesus Christ? Have you asked yourself that question? What kind of commitment do you need to be a true follower of Jesus? And then, secondly, if I want to be a disciple, a fully committed follower of Jesus, I must be willing to pay these four costs. And the four costs that Jesus is going to ask us to consider to pay are found right from the four object lessons that He addresses in Luke chapter 14. Now, before we get into the passage, I want you to understand something about the context of where we're landing this morning. This is part of Jesus' Galilean ministry, the northern part of Israel. He'd been ministering for a while, and you'll see from the very first verse. In fact, if you look at that first verse that we're going to start in verse 25, it says, "Great crowds accompanied Him." A lot of people, a large following of people, were coming to Jesus. Why? He'd built quite a reputation for Himself. There had been many healings. There had been the feeding of 4,000, and then 5,000. There was a lot of needs being met. One of the other reasons why He had gathered such a following is because some actually did think He was the Messiah. You understand what that term means? That means the one that was sent from God that was predicted in the Old Testament for centuries to come, predicted to be the Redeemer and deliverer of the Jewish people. Why did the people start following Jesus? Because they thought that Jesus was going to be their political deliverer. They were under oppression from Rome. Roman Empire taxed them heavily. Jewish, nation, very oppressed and suppressed in their religious liberties in their relationship to Rome. So here great crowds came to follow Jesus many because of what they could get from Him, food, shelter, clothing, miracles, others because they thought this is the guy that's going to deliver them from Roman oppression. Now with that in mind, I want you to notice that Jesus is going to really do a winnowing process or a sifting process at this point in His ministry between true followers of Jesus and those that are only in it for self-gain. What does the passage say? Follow along as I read verse 25, "Great crowds accompanied 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, and yes, even His own life, He cannot be My disciple. For whoever does not bear His own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." Now here are the object lessons that are coming. You ready? Verse 28, "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 this tower begin to mock Him saying, "Well, this man began to build, but he was not able to finish." Verse 31, a second object lesson, "Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet Him who comes against Him with 20,000." And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, He sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that He has cannot be My disciple." Object lesson number 3, verse 34, "Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away." Now He who has ears to hear, let Him hear what I'm saying. So there are four costs that are being delivered by Jesus to a crowd where He is beginning to speak to their hearts and say, "Why are you following Me?" That's a good question for us to ask. Why did we choose to follow Jesus? Was it only because of what He could give to us, salvation, a bountiful life, a beneficial life in walking with Him? All of those benefits are good. But Jesus is saying, "Just as I took up my cross, you now, as a true follower of Jesus, must be willing to take up your cross as well." In fact, it almost comes across like Jesus is being a little bit negative here. Did you notice as we read through this passage that four times He says, "You cannot be My disciple. You cannot be My follower." He says that in verse twenty-six. In verse twenty-seven, verse thirty-three, one of those times it's actually said twice in one verse. So let's unpack the four costs that Jesus is asking this crowd and by application is asking us to consider if we are wanting to be an all-in follower of Jesus Christ. The first one I believe is the cost of priorities. The cost of priorities. He says in verse twenty-six, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and yes, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." Now, I don't know about you, but that verse really strikes me as a difficult one to understand. A little bit harsh, it's actually talking about the strong language of hate. He says, "If you come after Me and you don't hate your father and your mother and your wife and your children and your brothers and your sisters and yes, even yourself." What does that mean? What is the strong language of hate mean? Is God really calling us? Is Jesus really saying, "Look, I have come here to divide your families. I want you to be so devoted to Me that you must hate your father and mother. You must hate your wife, hate your children." Obviously, if you are a student of the word and you know anything about human relationships, God's redemption in our life not only has a vertical relationship of connecting us to Him, but it has a horizontal relationship of connecting us to family members and yet even to the family of God, right? We're not used to hearing that language. You should hate so-and-so. You should hate Him. What on earth is Jesus talking about here? Well, to understand the definition and the language of what Jesus is saying when He says, "You must hate these individuals." I want you to turn to a related passage real quickly in Romans chapter 9 verse 13. Romans chapter 9 verse 13, I think will give us a little bit of an explanation or definition of what Jesus means. It goes back to the story of Jacob and Esau. You remember them? Two brothers in the Old Testament and their father Isaac was blind. He was about ready to give the birthright, which was the normal passing of the privileges of being the first born. Now Esau was the older first born of the two sons between Esau and Jacob, but what happened is Jacob tricked his father, dressed up like Esau who was a hunter, even put on hairy clothing and it caused himself to smell like his brother Esau and went in and got the birthright blessing from his father Isaac. Now what does the apostle Paul say about this? Let me jump back to verse 10 of Romans 9. It says, "And not only so, but when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of Him who calls. And she was told this, the older will serve the younger." Why? Because the birthright was given to Jacob, not Esau, and then listened to this extrapolated or pulled out verse in the Old Testament, verse 13, "As it is written, Jacob, I loved, but Esau, I hated." So here's the question, did God really hate Esau? Answer? No. But in reference to the blessing or the preference that was given to Jacob, it was as though Esau was cast aside as a priority for God's blessing in that family. Take that definition and go back to Luke chapter 14. I think really what Jesus is saying when he says you must hate your relationships, your closest dearest people on earth, he's saying this, it's almost as though you must conclude in your own life the priority of Jesus is first place. This is Christ's call to us for priority setting. In other words, Jesus is saying, ask yourself this question, do I love God first? Am I willing to relinquish anything that ties me down? The call for us to set priorities, and the sad thing is that sometimes, if we're honest with ourselves, we use family members or excuses of family devotion to actually keep us from going the next step in following Jesus. In fact, Jesus in another place and another experience where a man came to him and said, "Lord, I want to give up everything I have and I want to follow you, but first let me go bury my father." And Jesus said, "No, the dead can bury the dead, you must follow me." Wow, tough, harsh language, but what Jesus was saying is he knew the heart of the man, and he was using that as an excuse to just trivialize or get away from the responsibility of what Jesus was saying, "I must be first place in your life. No others before me." Listen, I introduced you to the dearest and most precious person on earth to me this morning, my wife. But Collin and I both understand that our relationship, even as a husband and wife, is subservient to the lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. It's God that gave me that beautiful girl 37 years ago. It's God that we must center our attention and there is no one else that can meet our drive and our need for passion, for understanding life more than Jesus can. And when that becomes a reality in our lives, even human relationships pale at the comparison of giving it all up for the Lord. Now, you might be saying, "Leah, are you saying that I just have to get away from my family, that I have to ignore them, that I should treat them as though they don't exist?" No, not at all. And Jesus isn't saying that either. But what he is saying is don't allow family members to become an excuse for not going the next step in your growth. We even see that up at some universities. Sometimes kids want to come to school. They want to give their lives to Christ to serve, but mom and dad will step in and they'll say, "No, I got better plans for them. I want them to be that doctor. I want them to be that lawyer. I want them to be a CEO. I want them to be on the stock exchange." Fine. All well and good if that's where God calls them and uses them. But many times they're actually standing in the way of what God wants to do with him. The first cost in order to be a true follower of Jesus is the cost of priorities. I love God first, and I'm willing to relinquish anything that ties me down. The second cost is one of perseverance. And here's where he gets into these three quick illustrations, object lessons. The first one he uses is this object lesson in verses 28 to 30 that really talk about a tower. And he asked the question, "If you're going to build a tower, don't you first sit down and count the cost whether you have enough to complete it?" I mean, when you moved into this building, wasn't there some cost effectiveness or cost analysis that was done? Let's see. How much is it going to cost us to really own this building? Pain it, take control of it. Last, it would set as an object of no planning or no perseverance rather to finish the job. It's interesting when we passed on the other outskirts of Reading, we used to live right outside by the Penn State Berks campus there. It was kind of an old 17th or 18th century home with kind of like a servants quarters. We lived in the servants quarters. Okay, back then we didn't have a lot of money and we were satisfied with any place that God would put us. And when we landed there, but the first week I noticed off in the distance across the field was this block, cinder block building, but it looked strange. I mean, I could tell even from a distance that there was weeds growing out of it. And my curiosity got to the best of me and I went down an inspect and it looked like it was going to be like some kind of horse barn where the owner was going to put horses in there, but it never got finished. And I mean, it was obvious the construction stopped a long time ago, whether he ran out of money or ran out of passion or whatever, he did not persevere to the end to finish the job. And Jesus in counting the cost for true disciples here is saying, look at this is a long race. This is a long lifetime commitment to follow me. Are you all in? Some people are sprinters when it comes to Christian life. They'll do a quick start out of the gate and then falter. The Apostle Paul said the thing that he wanted to mark his life is that when he got to the end of his life that it said that he had finished well. In fact, I have a friend in ministry who signs his letters that way all the time aiming to finish well. And that's really what Jesus is saying here. Are you willing to count the cost of perseverance? Do you count the cost of how long and how much it will take you to finish the job? Otherwise, according to verse 29, it says people will mock you. This man began to build, but he was not able to finish. He did not persevere to the end. Jesus wants desires, long term, long distance runners in the race. Now, if you want some quick examples from Scripture, here's a few that I thought of because perseverance shows itself in a lot of different aspects in our lives, doesn't it? For instance, perseverance and trials, what about Job? Job had everything thrown at him that possibly could come his way. God allowed Satan to try him in many ways, his health, his wealth was taken away, his family members were killed in a storm, and then to top it all off, his wife said, "Job, get real, curse God and die." What was Job's response say? "Should I not receive evil from the hand of the Lord as well as good? Aren't there circumstances in my life where I know it will tempt me to derail my faith and to actually move away from God?" We see that all the time, don't we? People get discouraged in their lives. They're Christ followers, all of a sudden the burdens of life come across, and they say, "No, it's too much for me." Not Job said, "I know that my redeemer lives, and I know that I will see him in the last day." That was his promise. We're about about perseverance and prayer, like Daniel, and Edex came down when he was in Babylon, "You can no longer pray to your God, what do you do?" He continued to go to his open window and prayed to God every day. Or Nehemiah is an example of perseverance and building. Remember God used him to come back after the exile to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And there was opposition from outside, but the greater opposition actually came from inside, from his friends, from people who said, "Nehemiah, what are you doing? You're never going to be able to finish this task." Isaiah is an example of perseverance in message. You know that great passage in Isaiah chapter 6 where he sees the Lord, high and lifted up? And the seraphim are waving their wings and they're crying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord." And what does Isaiah say? Well, he hears the voice from God. He says, "Who will go for me? Who will I send?" Isaiah says, "It's me, Lord. I'll go for you." After that passage and a lot of us don't read the next section, Isaiah asked the question, "Okay, so what do you want me to do and how long do you want me to do it?" You know what God says? You're going to go to a people who have fat ears. What's he saying? They get stuffed clogged in their ears, they can't hear. They've got hard hearts. And he says, "By the way, they are never going to listen to a word you say and that's going to be your ministry the rest of your life." Wow. What if you got that kind of opportunity to pastor that kind of church? I wonder if Pastor John would still be here if you all said, "Not going to listen to a thing you say, John. No, my heart is cold. Come on, give us your best shot. You can't sway me." Isaiah had that kind of ministry. Or what about Paul? I already mentioned him, perseverance in service. He said at the end of his life, "None of these things move me. Neither count I my life dear to myself, but that I might finish well." Or Jesus himself, perseverance and mission. He said in the garden, John 17, "Lord, is there any way that this cup of sacrifice of crucifixion could pass from me?" He realized when he uttered those words, the answer was no. And he basically said to God, "The Father, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done." Perseverance is counting a cost to not just start following Jesus, but to finish to the end. So let's take this home pretty quick. Two last costs. The cost of planning, verses 31 through 33, similar to perseverance. But here he uses the example of a king who's going to wage war against another king. And he sits down and he deliberates whether he has enough manpower with 10,000 who is coming against him as an enemy with 20,000 twice the manpower than what he has. And if he says, "Hmm, maybe my argument with this guy isn't as urgent as I thought it was. Maybe me putting my foot down and having my way is not as important, maybe I ought to send a delegation of peace to work out our differences." So here's a cost of planning. Can I give you just a couple of practical illustrations how to work this cost out in your own life? Number one, set measurable goals. The cost of discipleship often gets from wanting to do lofty things for God to just down to the nitty gritty of setting some measurable goals for your own life. Secondly, examine your own personal strengths and weaknesses. Build on the strengths, on the weaknesses. Plan to have someone teach you, coach you, mentor you, or hold you accountable to those weaknesses. Thirdly, examine the resources that are available to you. What resources is God put into your life so that the plan that you're executing to follow Jesus will be successful? And then lastly, determine your spiritual gifts. There's three key passages in the New Testament that will allow you to understand what spiritual gifts are available to all believers. You won't have all of them, but you'll have at least one of them and maybe two or three. Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 and Ephesians 4 give lists of opportunities that the Spirit of God has empowered you to do through using your spiritual gift to actually edify or build up someone else in the body of Jesus. Sometimes it takes a little bit of creativity in our planning to be successful. I love this little poem called "Two Frogs and a Cream" which illustrates resourceful planning. It goes like this, "Two Frogs fell into a can of cream," or so I've heard it told. The sides of the can were shiny and steep, cream was deep and cold. "Oh, what's the use?" croaked frog number one. It's fate. There's no help around. "Goodbye, my friends. Goodbye, sad world." And weeping still, he drowned. But frog number two was of sternor stuff. He dog paddled in surprise. And the while he wiped his creamy face and dried his creamy eyes, he said, "Well, I think I'll swim a while at least," or so I've heard he said. It really wouldn't help the world if there was one more frog that was dead. So an hour or two he kicked and swam, not once he stopped to mutter, but kicked and kicked and swam and kicked and then hopped out via butter. He turned his circumstance of drowning in cream into churning his way into building a block of butter which rescued his life. Sometimes the circumstances in our life cause us to drive our thinking towards resourceful planning. Here's the last cost. It's the cost of purity. Now, in verses 34 and 35, he uses the illustration of salt. And to kind of summarize what's going on here, in the biblical cultural use for salt in the context, it was always a symbol of purity. And he says salt is good, but if it's lost, it's taste. How shall it, it's saltiness be restored? Do you remember what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that we are to be both light and salt to the world? Saltiness means a pure preservative. When we are light, we shine the light of the Gospel to people, but as salt, he asks his disciples to be different by means of their marked personal holiness. In other words, we are a preservative or a symbol of purity, and if we lose that purity, we are no longer fit for God's intended use for us. Now, very briefly what he says here is salt can be used for flavoring taste. It was used as preservative in the New Testament because they didn't have refrigerators, so they would salt meat heavily to keep it from decaying. But then notice he says, if it loses its savor, its saltiness, it's not even good for the soil. That's one more use. They would use it as a combination with fertilizer because it would preserve the fertilizer longer, and the last, he said, it's not even good enough for the manure pile. They would actually throw salt on the manure pile because again it would help preserve the stench of decay. Here's the illustration. Jesus wants his disciples to count the cost of purity and standing for truth in a wicked sinful world, and if we lose our purity, we've lost the intended use that God can manifest his glory and his holiness through us. For cost, priority, perseverance, planning, and purity. So, there's probably some easy excuses, right? Because I'm sure the people here thought, you know, why should I follow you? What you're telling me is it really, it costs too much, and I won't be happy if, you know, if I really have to count the cost of priorities and perseverance, I've got my own plans. And Jesus says, "My plans are better." You ever heard this some story about why fire trucks are red? You ever wondered when you saw a fire truck going on the road? Why is it red? Now I know that this illustration falls apart a little bit because now they've invented yellow fire trucks about 20 years ago. So, I'm telling you specifically about the red ones here. And here's why fire trucks are red. Fire trucks have four wheels and eight men, and four and eight are 12. There are 12 inches in a foot. A foot is a ruler, Queen Elizabeth is a ruler, and Queen Elizabeth is the largest ship in the Seven Seas. Seas have fish, and fish have fins, F-I-N-N, well, they have fins, and then the fins fought the Russians, F-I-N-N, finished people. The Russians are red. Fire trucks are always Russian. Therefore, fire trucks are always red. That's why fire trucks are red. I lost you all halfway through that, didn't I? It's easy to lose sight of why that circular reasoning just doesn't make sense. But if you think that's wild, you ought to hear some people trying to explain why they won't count the cost of following Jesus. Somehow we get this idea that following Jesus and counting the cost means that our lives are going to become meaningless. Our lives are going to be nothing what I wanted them to be. In fact, I'm going to pursue things that really are going to cause me to go to some foreign mission field and eat grasshoppers the rest of my life. Is that really what following Jesus is all about? Or is it really accepting his plan for my life so that the cost that I'm paying to follow him makes absolute perfect sense? I'm going to close with this story about a man sitting in his office looking out the window, a little bored with his work. He was seeing the clear rays of sunshine bathed through his office window and he was reading from Matthew's account of the Lord's last day on earth. When he lifted his eyes from the words to meditate on their meaning, he suddenly caught sight of a deadly drama unfolding on his window pane. A web of deceit, an unsuspecting ant was slowly walking towards a lurking spider. So I resisted the instinct to interfere and save the ant's life fascinated with this microcosm of the eternal struggle for survival. I could almost feel the spider's excitement building as the ant continued his walk towards certain death. Then in action and reaction so fast to appear simultaneous, the ant was suddenly paralyzed by the sight of his dreaded foe and the spider seized his startled prey in perfect execution of his practice plot. I felt sadness for the tiny snuffed out life of the little ant. But wait, I looked and the ant was walking away unhurt. Time after time the spider attacked but to no avail. That ant, seemingly on the verge of death, was safely separated from the spider by the window pane itself. You see the spider couldn't tell that the ant was protected by the thickness of the window pane. He was on the outside and the spider was on the inside. For over 15 minutes the spider struggled to capture his prey. Finally he crawled away looking more frustrated than menacing in search of a more obliging victim. You know the Lord must see us in a similar scenario. We struggle in vain to capture life's happiness. We madly attempt to take by force that which is beyond our reach. It's on the other side of the eternal plan for Jesus for our lives. Satan often tantalize us with visions of happiness on the outside of the window pane. We spend our energies waiting, planning, working and finally pouncing upon our dreams only to watch them slip away. Now how long can that spider survive if he insists on hunting food in a world that he cannot touch? Only time will tell but his end is certain. Our Lord saw our seemingly endless pursuits of our own inventions of happiness and he had compassion on us. He came from the other side and entered our world. He gave his life while we continue to pursue our own ideas of happiness. And now he became the bridge to eternal peace for us. He invites us to reject the devil's illusions for our own invented happiness and turn to him for life and rest. If we would look on Jesus just once we would never be fooled again by this world's window pane. As a result, God does have a design for us and counting the cost of discipleship makes perfect sense for one who has been redeemed for a specific purpose. That of glorifying God, honoring God, living for another world, the world where Jesus is in control and leading as the Lord of our lives. If we don't take up our cross and follow Jesus and count the cost, Jesus says you can't be my disciple. But if you do count the cost, it will be worth it. Jesus guarantees it. Father, help us to put into practice these object lessons that draw us to yourself and really seal the deal that following Jesus is worth the cost because it's exactly what we were designed to do. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]