The Cost of Non-Discipleship

Introduction

You’re making your way to Luke chapter 18. Luke 18, we’ll begin reading in verse 18. Luke 18, beginning in verse 18. I feel maybe a little bit like Daniel’s comment this morning. Everything sounded really good in my head at home, but I’ve been sick for a couple weeks, and so I’ll just throw that out there for now. You know, one of the things that you go through when you feel like that is kind of fogginess in the brain. And so my biggest fear is that the whole concept is foggy and weird, but hopefully it’ll come out and make total sense. I tried to align it in a way that I thought was logical and sensible, but you can be the judge of that. I’ve been thinking a lot about discipleship and will continue to do so in the coming year.

But part of my thinking over the last couple weeks was I kind of was letting my mind wander through this idea and theme, has to do with the idea of what we give up if we are not disciples. What is the cost of rejection of Jesus? Certainly there is a cost that comes with discipleship, and that’s something that’s talked about. Jesus wants us to think about that. In fact, in Luke 14, he says to count the cost, and he gives some illustrations of how it’s it’s imprudent to go into an endeavor without thinking through it first. And one of the things I think we should think carefully about, particularly when we’re guiding our young people, is have they actually counted the cost of the decision that they’re making?

When now they’re deciding they’re going to follow Jesus. Jesus himself tells us to do that. But there’s also the other side of this that’s worthy of consideration, and that is the cost of non-discipleship. What do we sacrifice? What are we giving up when we reject the good news? When we reject Jesus and his message. And fortunately, we have some stories that help us along these lines. I want to look at the story of this rich ruler, at least as a launching place to begin from. And actually, Jesus has a lot to say about this idea of cost and the idea of following him and what that looks like, or what it looks like when we don’t. And it’s scattered all through the Gospels a number of times.

1. He Kept His Money, but at the Cost of Joy

He says very similar things. And so I’ll reference some of those statements this morning, probably in somewhat of a quick fashion to move through it to kind of get to where we’re headed. But I want to begin with this story. The story I’ll remind you comes just a few verses after the other story that you’re very familiar with in the Gospel of Luke, and that is the Pharisee and the tax collector. These two men who go down to the temple to pray, and they’re very different. One is very impressive and does all kinds of great things, and he lets the Lord know about it. And the other is just simply seeking mercy and grace. Right? And one goes home justified and the other doesn’t. Just following the story, this ruler comes to Jesus and he says, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. And he said, All these I’ve kept from my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, one thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come, follow me. But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. I want to just briefly analyze this dialogue between Jesus and this rich ruler. The ruler is really seeking, I think, a transactional relationship, in which he merely wants approval.

He wants approval for who he is, for his identity, for his power, his status, and even panders to Jesus in his initial address, good teacher. And you notice subtly Jesus calls him out for this. Why do you call me good? To which the ruler never actually answers the question, right? But there’s a statement here by Jesus to emphasize his authority, his deity. He doesn’t want to leave this moment where this man is merely coming for affirmation. He’s coming for approval. And he asked this question, which I think is a very transactional question, just for his own benefit, for his own good. Tell me what I have to do. What is it that I have to do to get eternal life? That’s his focus. And he’s looking for the answer he wants to receive, which is what then comes next.

Jesus says, You know the commandments. I mean, I don’t need to tell you this. And now this gives the opportunity for the ruler to then affirm his religious ritual from childhood. Oh, yeah, I’ve done all of these things. You know, I’ve I’ve been to assembly and I’ve kept all the rules. And so he can now proclaim who he is to God, who is good, and say, see, this is who I am. But of course, Jesus, in recognizing the weakness of this man, still points out what he is lacking. And that is, in the giving of the invitation, will this man who believes Jesus is good, who believes that Jesus is God, will he not just perform, will he not just proclaim or affirm that he’s done some good deeds and he’s kept some rules, or will he actually follow this good teacher?

That’s the bottom line. Jesus says, sell your possessions, give them to the poor. If you really want to know the answer, here’s the answer. Sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and then come and follow me. Well, this is not the answer he was looking for. Like I already said, he was looking for approval, looking for affirmation of who he was. But now Jesus is calling him to give up his identity. Give up what makes him. He is the rich ruler. He is this person who has power and prestige and lots of money. And giving up himself, which is what Jesus calls us to in discipleship, means giving up our identity. And when he calls this man to give up his identity, the result is, much like the result is still the result we have today, when we’re unwilling to give up self and follow Jesus, he walks away sorrowful.

He kept his money, but at the cost of joy. And it’s this model, this idea, this concept that I want us to run with as we think about the cost of non-discipleship. What does it really look like to reject Jesus? Now, in our day and our time, it may be very different. We struggle with the same types of things, but they manifest themselves maybe in slightly different ways. It could very much be greed. It could be wealth, just like this man, an unwillingness to give up possessions, material things. That certainly could be my struggle or it could be yours. Could be the same sort of struggle this rich man has, but could also be manifest in any number of other ways. In our self-centered culture, really it becomes manifest in this idea of understanding me for who I am, right?

This deep desire, and some of this is legitimate to it to an extent. All error is kind of housed in bits of truth. But it’s this deep desire for authenticity, right? I have this feeling that I’ve been living a lie, and now I’m really figuring out who I really am, and I’m going to express myself as an individual. I’m coming to terms with my inner being. Now, people may not use these types of phrases so much. But it is the spirit of our age. So much so when people struggle in their marriage, or they struggle with parent-child relationships or with friendships or with coworkers or whatever it might be, often the concept or the idea they have with themselves is they’ve come to terms with their inner self, and these other people just can’t handle who they really are.

This is our culture. It’s their problem. They need to accept me for who I am and stop demanding that I be something else. And so we wrestle with this idea of who I really am as a person, and will people accept me as a person? And all of this is completely misdirected. But this is the nature of our culture and what is being pushed, particularly on our young people, and all sorts of facets of life. And of course, all of this is bound up with the idea of an unwillingness to give up self, but actually to accentuate self. More than ever, I am supposed to be what I am, and I’m supposed to discover who I am and accentuate who I am and not give up who I am for anybody and demand that everybody else accept who I am.

What if who I am stinks? Have you ever thought about that? What if it is wretched and putrid and wicked and evil and ungodly and sinful? These are the sorts of things that our culture does not consider. And the emphasizing of the importance of knowing who I am and finding myself, a thought I want to come back to in just a moment.

2. We Give Up the Easy Yoke

But even more so, what I want us to understand this morning is that there is a cost of rejecting Jesus. Have we calculated that cost? What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world? And yet forfeits his soul. So I want to run through some key verses here and kind of establishing some of these ideas. As we think about the path of the non-disciple, of the one who, like this rich ruler, has rejected Jesus’ offer. Jesus said, Here’s what I want from you, I demand from you. Come and follow me. What do we give up when we say, no, not interested? The first thing that we give up, which we’ve talked about before in past sermons, is we give up the easy yoke.

The path of non-discipleship is a path of bearing heavy burdens and heavy yokes. And the cost is giving up what Jesus offers, which is rest and relief. Gentleness, as opposed to the harshness of the world. Care and concern. My yoke is easy and my burden is light, he says in Matthew 11, 28 through 30. And what I want us to understand here is Jesus is not saying, well, it’s just all going to be easy and there’ll be no problems. You won’t even have to work. That’s not Jesus’ offer. It’s a yoke. It’s still a yoke. And everyone’s going to bear a yoke. Life is hard. That’s just the reality. Life can be hard with Jesus, or life can be hard without Jesus. But the reality is it’s much more difficult and painful when we try to go along with life by ourselves alone.

How unbearable to walk through the struggles of life if we merely think we’re part of a meaningless, random, unguided, hopeless universe. That’s a heavy burden to bear. We look at the struggles and the difficulty, the affliction, the oppression at times, the foolishness, the consequences of bad choices. We look at all of that, and there’s just nothing. There’s nothing to look forward to. There’s nothing to save us. We are on our own. This is the path of non-discipleship. Now I want us to understand when I talk about discipleship or non-discipleship. Non-discipleship, it can be rejection of Jesus, just outright rejection. But it can also just be a life of non-decision.

And so I sort of just float through life doing aimlessly whatever it is I do. That is also a decision of non-discipleship, of being unwilling to follow Jesus. It may not be a direct rejection, but in non-decision, I have decided ultimately to follow the ways of the world. And discipleship as well is not merely just believing the right doctrines, right? Or showing up into the right places a couple times a week. That’s not discipleship. So we can believe some good things. We can believe that there’s a God. We can believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but discipleship comes down to action. It is about the decisions that we’re making and the actions that are being borne out in our life. Essentially, do our deeds match our mouth?

If we are believer and we claim that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, does our behavior then back up that claim? That’s what discipleship is about. And so it’s very possible, unfortunately, to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, to proclaim that with our mouths, and then actually not really be a disciple. That’s very possible. And in that sort of situation, we is we just like the person who’s rejected the offer of Jesus, just like the rich ruler, just like the religious rulers of Jesus’ day who rejected him, just like all of them, we still bear the heavy load. Because ultimately, rather than looking to Jesus for answers, we still are leaning on our own understanding. We’re still going about things our own way.

Jesus makes it abundantly clear that the answer to my problems is to lose my life. And that is what is so flawed about modern culture. And the idea of finding myself. The temptation today is when we are desperate or we’re angry or we’re hopeless or depressed or we’re confused is that we go find ourselves. We go seek some personal fulfillment. We find out how to be at peace with who we are as a person. Listen, if I could do that myself on my own, I already would have.

Matthew 10, 38 and 39. The one who wishes to find his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it. If I really want to find life. If I really want to find happiness and peace, and some of these things we’ll talk more about here in just a moment, the answer is not to go find myself. The answer is to lose myself in Jesus Christ. To become his. That is the only way to find life. When I reject Jesus to go find myself, I give up the easy yoke. And I bind myself to burdens I cannot possibly bear.

Disappointment with myself, as over and over again I continue to fail, and disappointment with others who fail me in the process. And when my eyes are fixated on the things that are here, when my eyes are fixed on fixing my own problems and trying to find my own life, all I’ll ever find is greater and greater disappointment. That’s the path of the heavy yoke. That’s the path of non-discipleship. Thinking the answers are within myself or within my culture, or that I can figure this out on my own. And yet Jesus’ invitation stands, come to me, all you who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come and learn from me. Come be my disciple, and you will find rest for your souls.

3. A Properly Structured Affection in Life

Look, when we go against the paradigms and the patterns and the created order of God, that idea of giving rest to the soul, I want us to understand all of this negatively affects the human psyche. It is not just that we go through difficulty, it also doesn’t just damage marriages and parent-child relationships and friendships, it also damages our mind. When we reject the patterns of God, when we reject the paradigms of God, when we reject the hierarchical order that God has put in place throughout scripture about how things are supposed to work, it affects the way we think.

Ultimately, those who reject Jesus’ call of discipleship and walk this road, this life of non discipleship, the cost, is a properly structured affection in life. Healthy and joyful relationships. Now, even as a disciple, we all know there’s going to be times we struggle and we have conflict, but the difference is there actually is a meaning in struggle. In the ways of the world, and the find myself, the follow my heart type of mentality, struggle is a hindrance to personal growth. Right? And so if I’m no longer happy in my marriage, or I’m no longer happy with a friendship, I just cut it off and get rid of it because it is an obstacle to who I really am. This is disordered love. This is the path of non-discipleship, and which we sacrifice healthy and good and joyful relationships.

Ultimately, we pave our path with a me first mentality. And so this is manifest in these models like do what’s best for you. Or do what makes you feel good or makes you feel right, or follow your heart. This is all communicating this very powerful, destructive philosophy. Because struggle is damaging to the inner self, to the way I view myself. When someone makes me unhappy or makes me not feel good, that then damages the way I view who I am, and I can’t have that because it’s a me first sort of life. And so in my marriage, happiness then trumps covenant. Humility, sacrifice, confession, and a heart to change have no place in me being my authentic self, holding on to my identity, pursuing happiness. And if we reject Jesus, there is nothing of higher moral value than me and the way I feel.

That becomes the arbiter of justice. And so if you make me feel bad, you are in the wrong and you are sinful. This is the me first non-discipleship path. A path that is disordered in affection and love because it puts myself first. It is the ultimate form of selfishness, or actually just the idea of narcissism that I must be honored and glorified by all who are around me. Essentially, everyone around me merely exists to live within the story of me, which brings all sorts of destruction and chaos. Children become pawns or projects and a parent’s story of their own success. Look how happy we are. Look what all I can do for them. Or even look how much they don’t appreciate what I do, or how it is for me to be a parent.

I have to give up so much of myself and who I am. It’s really messed up the way I have to live, but I’m willing to do it. This is the modern me mentality. Where self is at the center, and I have a disordered view of the world and friendships, they’re simply utilitarian. They’re for some usefulness. It’s transactional, it’s just for self benefit. How can this person help me? What need do they fill in my life? This is the path of non-discipleship. This is where it leads. It’s all very functional. Utilitarian in the idea that it’s not really about mutual blessing, but how I can be better. And the whole irony of selfishness is that it destroys everything, including the inner self.

Now I’m using phrases and things like that you may not have heard used a whole lot, this idea of inner self or psychological self, but I just want you to understand what’s happening here in this process. When we are selfish and we choose our own way, because we’re looking out for number one and we simply want our own benefit, the ultimate reality is we actually curse ourselves. We bring destruction into our life. And here’s here’s the thing. You don’t understand where I’m getting at here? Anxiety and depression, mental disorders, all of these have grown exponentially, even in the last 20 years. As this becomes a bigger and bigger problem in our culture, where people, rather than sacrificing self for Jesus Christ, have sacrificed everything else for self.

And it has made us the most unhappy, depressed, anxious society that has probably ever existed. Whoever would save his life, Jesus says, will lose it, Matthew 16. And so chasing happiness is the worst way to ever find it. But love properly oriented, particularly in our culture, seems very extreme, even hateful. But it’s actually what’s best. Do you believe he’s good? Good teacher? Do we believe he’s God? If we do, are we going to accept him on his own terms and what he says is best? The love of Christ orders all other loves properly. And so he can say some things that are pretty extreme. This is Matthew 10. Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth, Matthew 10, 34. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother in law, and a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Man, that’s extreme. If you don’t love Jesus more than your spouse, or more than your child, or more than your mother, or more than your sibling, and more than anybody else, even in your own house.

Jesus says, if you don’t love me more than all of that, you’re not worthy of me. That’s love properly ordered. And when love is properly ordered, it disseminates down through the rest of these relationships. And Jesus is not naive.

And what it looks like is the enemies are going to come from your own house when people oppose Jesus. When they won’t give their life to him, when they won’t give up self, when they won’t sacrifice who they are, then your enemies will even come from your own house. Son and father and mother and daughter will be against each other. Because some will not submit to the will of God. They will have improper affection. Their loves will be disorderly. And in doing so, all manner of destruction will come about. Just imagine how different the world would be. If Jesus and seeking the kingdom of God was put first. How much better would be our marriages? Our parent-child relationships, our friendships, our congregations. If there is true commitment and devotion to Christ first, loving him first above all.

We’ve all been witness to sometimes even the destruction and chaos that comes from a disorderly love of children. A love in which we’re unwilling to discipline and train and punish because we love them so much. What then happens? All manner of chaos and destruction. But when we love Christ first, we tell our children, I have to train you, because that’s my job. Sometimes I have to punish you because that’s the job I’ve been given. That’s the authority I have from God the Father. This is his created order. And when I defy his created order, bad things happen. I can’t lean on my own understanding. I can’t value the things of the world and the way the world thinks things should be done. I have to value the way Jesus says things should be done.

I have to love him first. And if I don’t love him more than my own parents or my own children or my own spouse, it will be a path of sadness and depression and anxiety and guilt and all sorts of manner of mental deficiency. All of these things are going to come when we depart from the things of God and try to go about things our own way. Consider the mental burden from defying the creator of the world and doing things our own way. When love is properly oriented, struggle is an opportunity for growth. It’s not a threat to inner peace. Count it all joy, my brothers. When you meet trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces patience. What is the testing of faith here?

The testing of faith is when we give up self-will. When we give up leaning on our own understanding, and we say, I’m going to do this Jesus way and see how this works out. The testing of our faith is I’m going to follow Jesus, not the world, as I’m going through this struggle and this difficulty, and as I work through this process and I put my faith in him, I see how this is born out of my life, my faith grows.

When the trials arrive, there’s never an opportunity for actual growth, for patience to have its perfect work. And happiness and joy and the blessed life comes from a life with properly ordered affection. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow. He concludes.

4. We Become Slaves to the Mundane

We become slaves to the mundane. The Latin term from which we get that word just means earth. We become slaves to the earth, to the material things, to the boring, to the daily grind. And we have a life filled with anxiety and sadness. The cost is sacrificing the hope of the future for the anxiety of the here and now. And so the rich ruler then has to worry about his money and what he’s going to do with his money. Had he listened to Jesus? He gives that up and he simply follows Jesus.

Now what? Now what is he left with? And his rejection of Jesus’ offer to follow him. Now he is left with the slavery to the daily grind, to the vanity of vanities, to grasping after the wind. He is so dedicated to this life now. And there’s no hope for the future. Because his eyes are only fixed on the here and the now. Just like the religious rulers in Jesus’ day, people can claim beliefs all they want, but actions speak louder than words. Their actions spoke that they were more worried about their power and status than the purpose of God working through Jesus Christ. Religion was just a show to them. Paul warns us of this mentality. People will be lovers of self, having a form of godliness, but denying its power.

That’s what a disorderly love does. It makes us think we’re religious. It allows us to affirm all the things we’ve kept from childhood and yet still in all the show, simply live for self. Paul says, avoid such people. People who are set out to gain the world because they’ve given up a following of Jesus Christ, and now they’re after the prophet that comes here. And just think about the nature of how this works. If this is it, I mean, think about the absolute terror that comes from facing something like the pandemic we had recently. I mean, if this is it.

And you’ve got to grasp desperately on to life in every imaginable way. And so, of course, there’s terror and anxiety. Because there’s no thought for the future. Therefore, after gaining this world, think about the value we place on things like education or wealth, or even now youth. The hyperfixation of youth in our culture and the mental burden that comes with all of this. How do you wrestle with your low status and poverty and suffering and growing old when so much value is placed on here and now? And on the other side, think about the liberation that comes from realizing how little those things matter if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ. If here is all there is, career becomes identity. Let me ask you this. What about when technology changes and your job’s no longer needed?

Or the economy crashes and you lose your job. Or even simply you retire, then what?

If your whole life has been built around that identity, then what do you have left? What is all this for? Or maybe your identity is found in beauty or youth. Time remains undefeated. I don’t mean to be ugly about this, but you will grow old, you will lose your beauty, and you will die. That’s what this life gives us. And if we’re only focused on the here and now, we are enslaved to the mundane, to the worthless, to that which has very little value. And that’s why the Apostle Paul says to set our minds on things above. That’s why Jesus is trying to reorient the thinking of his disciples and say, here, you need to consider what actually matters. For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

Matthew 16, verse 27. This is just after he says, take up your cross and follow me. What does it profit if you gain the whole world and you lose your own soul? What will a man give in exchange for his soul? The Son of Man is going to come and the glorious Father, and he is going to repay everyone according to their deeds. That is what truly matters. And the path of non-discipleship sacrifices it all. For the here and now.

None of that matters. When our focus is not purely on the here and now.

Conclusion

And so the rich ruler narrative is a prophetic message for our modern day where people seek fulfillment and peace, at least try to, apart from Jesus Christ. He directly rejects him. But day in and day out through decisions and actions and behaviors. Maybe even I myself reject him in the things I’m doing. And what is the cost? At the end of John’s gospel, there’s a scene where Jesus is talking to Peter, telling him what’s going to happen in his life, and he says, Well, what about this man? What about this other man? What’s going to happen to him? Jesus says, What is that to you? You follow me. What about my spouse? What about what they did? What is that to you? You follow Jesus. What about all the horrible things my parents did?

Or how this friend betrayed me? Or my employer was cruel. Or whatever thing we can come up with to victimize ourselves and make it all about me. What about all of it? You follow Jesus. That’s the answer. And there is no other answer. That’s what Jesus tells Peter. Don’t worry about John. Don’t worry about the other apostles. You worry about you. This is how you’re going to fix your problems, Peter. You follow me. And so the cost of non-discipleship is a life of meaningless burden, disordered by selfish desire and improper love, focused on the here and now, and that being as good as it gets. That’s all we get.

That’s all there is in the path of non-discipleship. And so my encouragement this morning is for you and for me to heed the message of Jesus Christ. His call to come to Him, to sacrifice all the things that we imagine are so important and so wonderful and so great that we’ll all come to nothing in the end anyway. To give up all of that and to surrender ourselves to the feet of Jesus and say, I’m yours. And when we do that, we’ll be on a path to fix the problems in our marriages and our friendships and with our children and with our parents and with our employers and with our coworkers and whoever it is we may have problems with. Those are red flags that someone is not following Jesus.

And the only thing I can do about it for me in my life is to say I’m going to follow him. And the same is true for you. Will you do it today? Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing together?