Sunday Service 4th October
Personal Cost
4/10/26 10am Alva 11.30am Menstrie
Call to worship
Hymn 565: My life flows on
Time for all Elaine
Hymn 533: Will you come and follow me
Reading: Luke 14: 25-35 Amanda
Prayer (The Lord’s Prayer will be on the screen)
Hymn 466: Before the throne of God above
Sermon
Dedication of Offering
Prayer
Hymn 201: Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness
Blessing Hymn
Benediction
Welcome to our meditation for 4th of October.
No matter how much they would deny it, there are not many ministers who wouldn’t want more people coming to their church.
No matter how much they would deny it, there aren’t many ministers who weren’t just a bit jealous of the mega church movement, those churches with thousands coming to their church every week.
And in a time when the institutional church is struggling, there is always the call to make the church more attractive to those not coming to church.
Which is why today’s passage is so counter cultural...because here it seems Jesus is chasing people away from his cause, frightening them off...or is he just being realistic?
Prayer of Dedication of Offering
Heavenly Father,
May our goings be a sign of how our heart feels. And may our heart be full of thanks for the life you have guided us on,
Amen
Sermon
One of the most serious and strained moments in my relationship with Roseanna happened about a month before we got married.
We had announced our engagement and some people had walked out of the church over it. A letter of complaint had been sent to the presbytery clerk. Basically it said that it was wrong for a minister to marry a Roman Catholic single mother.
And Roseanna took me aside one day and said we should break off the engagement because she didn’t want to ruin my career.
I am not too sure what career she thought I was aiming for.
So I assured her that
a) I was more than capable of ruining my own career and didn’t need her to do that for me.
b) ministers don’t really have a career to ruin anyway. There was no real hierarchy in the Church of Scotland. In fact my choice to become a Church of Scotland minister had been my way of telling people that I wasn’t going to try to become the pope
Though on a serious level, Roseanna realised that marrying her might have a cost, and she was worried that I hadn’t thought of that cost.
Now right at the start of the sermon I am going to tell you where this is going.
She was right, marrying Roseanna would have a cost, and it was right that I considered that.
But not marrying Roseanna would have had a cost as well, and that cost would have been so much greater, but only if I didn’t commit to it.
That is the point Jesus is making.
So here is the scenario...
The following behind Jesus is getting bigger.
His wandering ministry has been growing and growing.
The crowds are getting into the thousands.
And those crowds would be very mixed.
There are of course the disciples, those following Jesus and living with Jesus, seeking to become like him.
The way of discipleship was the way of living like the rabbi.
It was believed that what you believed and the way you lived your life were the same.
So those early disciples would want to eat like Jesus, sleep like Jesus, make decisions like Jesus, teach like Jesus.
The aim of those disciples was to become so like Jesus that when people saw them, they saw Jesus...and it didn’t matter when they saw them, they would see Jesus.
So if someone came to their house at midnight and woke them up, the person that came to the door and opened it would open the door and greet them like Jesus would.
Then there would be those that are curious about becoming disciples.
There would be those that want something from Jesus; maybe a healing, maybe advice, maybe they think that if they are close to Jesus good things will happen to them.
There would be those who are worried about Jesus or represent people who are worried about Jesus; spies of the Roman Empire or religious leadership in Jerusalem.
There would be those that want Jesus to be associated with their cause...we know that there were zealots in Jesus’ inner disciples, so maybe they thought they could get Jesus to start up a rebellion against the Roman Empire.
And there would be those who were just curious, things happened around Jesus, and if you saw some of those things then you had things to talk to your neighbours about.
When Jesus looked out and saw crowds of 4,000 people, he probably saw 4,000 different motives for people being there.
But as they get closer to Jerusalem, as they get closer to that last Passover...people are going to be tested in ways that they won’t expect.
And Jesus is warning them about this.
What he is worried about is that people think that blind faith will see them through what is ahead.
That they won’t have to make sacrifices, that God will somehow let them sail on seas without storms or struggles.
That people can sail through life without thinking of the consequences of their actions or the costs of their decisions.
The example he uses is of someone, and is probably based on a true event, that was building a tower based on the dreams of all the money he will make once the tower is finished. But they haven’t thought of the cost. And after the foundations have been built there isn’t enough money to complete the tower, so it just looks silly.
The reason I say it is probably based on true events is that human beings have a wonderful capacity of making the same mistakes over and over again.
This is 161 Maiden Lane, New York...I remember seeing a documentary about this and couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Let me give you the basics.
60 stories high...was planned to have a health club with a spa, fitness centre, and infinity pool (though to be honest I don’t know what an infinity pool it, but is sounds impressive).
Fortis Development Group bought the land for 64 million dollars.
Why?
Because they believed they eventually would have 80 condominiums in the building.
In April 2016, two years before the site would be opened; they started to sell those condominiums with the cheapest being offered for 1.2 million dollars.
Their hope was that by the time they had all been sold they would have made 272 million dollars.
They saw the dream...didn’t think of the cost.
In fact they thought they could cut corners.
You see the land was reclaimed land from the sea. It was basically drained marshes with basic rubbish building the ground up.
All the other skyscrapers in the area had sunk piles foundations down about 155 feet through that rubbish and marsh to hit solid rock. That was expensive to do but guaranteed stability.
They thought they could save a fortune, 6 million dollars, if they didn’t bother with that but instead just added materials to strengthen the soil. The trouble with that was that once they started to build such a heavy, thin structure on top of it, the foundations became unstable and the tower began to lean.
The truth is they only looked at the end profits, and ignored the sacrifices to get there.
Everything has a cost.
And Jesus was telling his people, telling us...that the cost of discipleship is high.
If we love our parents more than the way of Jesus, we aren’t paying the cost.
If we love our spouse more than Jesus, we aren’t paying the cost.
If we love our children or grandchildren more than Jesus, we aren’t paying the cost.
If we love ourselves or our church, or our theology, or our image, or anything more than Jesus, then we aren’t paying the cost.
If we love our life more than we love Jesus, then we aren’t paying the cost.
That is serious.
But here is the thing.
The cost is worth it.
Because what we get, is the life of Christ.
The life willing to make any sacrifice needed.
A life that knows the assurance that they are loved by God.
A life where we know we are forgiven.
A life where we know we can take risks for God.
A life where we are often put in situations we would never believe we could be in, but those situations show our life has meaning and purpose.
Now here is not what Jesus is asking us to do.
Jesus is not asking us to sacrifice our families.
Jesus is not asking us to make our spouses or our children or our friend’s second class.
I have seen ministers do that, I have seen elders do that, and it doesn’t work out well.
They believe that God is asking them to sacrifice everything to him...and they interpret that to mean that they should sacrifice their lives to the church, or the church charity.
So they end up giving everything to the church...all their money, all their time, all their effort, all their commitment...to the church.
And when there are struggles at home, they ignore them, because they believe they are doing God’s work...and they believe God will look after the home.
And then after years of neglect the spouse leaves them and they become disillusioned.
What gets me is that they are shocked...how could God allow that to happen to them when they were being faithful?
But God didn’t ask them to neglect their family.
God asked them to become more like Christ.
If they become more like Christ, if they dedicated their life to Christ, then they would end up loving their spouse and their family like Christ loves them.
And they would show that love to them the way Christ seeks to show his love to them.
We are called to be disciples of Christ.
Jesus is asking us to become like him.
That has a cost and it is right that we should consider that...because it will involve sacrifice.
Having to love that person who is a pain in the neck.
Having to respect and forgive people we don’t want to either respect or forgive.
Having to help others when it is more than just inconvenient.
Having to have a generous and unselfish heart.
Having to be patient and tolerant.
And so much more, so much more.
But here’s the thing.
God gives us the strength and the endurance and the forgiveness to help us on that journey.
God gives us the joy of knowing that no matter what we face in that journey that he will stick with us.
God gives us that wonder of knowing that every time we fail, he will help us grow and learn from that...if we are willing to grow and learn.
Going back to my original example...
35 years ago when Roseanna asked me to consider what I would lose if I married her...I had the wisdom of wondering what I would lose if I didn’t marry her.
I think Jesus wants us to do the same.
In forcing us to consider what we need to become to follow him...he asks us to reflect on what kind of person we become if we don’t follow him.
How would we treat others, how would we reflect on ourselves, if in the end the only thing that mattered, was what we thought and what we cared about?
Yes there is a cost to discipleship...I believe the cost is more than worth it.
Let us pray (first prayer for offerings)
Faithful God,
your words are hard today.
Your Son turned to the crowd and ask more than admiration, more than enthusiasm, more than warm feelings.
He asked for their whole life.
He asked us to count the cost, the true cost of what it would mean to follow in his path. To be willing to give up our life the way he did.
As your Son left the comfort of heaven to reach out to a broken world...so you ask us to leave the comfort we so desperately seek for ourselves, and reach out to that scary broken world outside our homes.
What is more you ask us to do it with the same heart your Son did.
Not to do it out of pride, or inflated ego, or the heart of a wounded martyr sacrificing all for a noble cause.
Instead you ask us to do it, to live life, with a heart of genuine love, a heart of genuine forgiveness, a heart of genuine hope.
We confess that part of us would rather not.
We would rather stay safe just doing as little as possible.
We would rather follow without changing too much.
We would rather stay near you without carrying too heavy a burden for others.
We would rather keep our hands full of things we want and still call ourselves free.
So meet us here with truth and mercy.
Show us what we are carrying that keeps us from following;
whether it is good stuff like that nice house,
or bad stuff like our anger towards someone else.
Show us what we are protecting, those painful memories or those false dreams, that keeps us from loving.
Show us what we are clinging to, those fears of what we might lose, that keep us from trusting.
And when we are afraid of what discipleship may ask of us,
remind us that you are there, your hand outstretched in love towards us
And so give us courage for the next step towards you, and then the next step, and then the next step.
This we ask in Jesus name.
Amen.
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