True Discipleship, True Satisfaction, True Life

 Texts:    I Corinthians 10:1-17; Mark 8:27-37

    WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF you were a young man of 34, with a beautiful wife and two young children, you had your whole life ahead of you, and the authorities said you must hang?  And not because of any crime you'd committed, but because you were a practicing Christian and pastor who helped others live their lives as practicing Christians? If the authorities told you you could save your life if you denied Jesus Christ, would you do it?  What if they told you you didn't even have to revile Jesus, you could say Jesus was a great prophet but not the eternal Son of God who shed His blood on the cross for sinners, and that'd save your life.   Would you do it?  For the sake of your wife and children, would you compromise the truth about Jesus your Lord?   For the sake of your own life, would you be ashamed of Him and His word and deny that He is your Saviour and the only Saviour of the world?

    Or would you take up your cross and follow Him?

    This is the decision faced by Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran, but for him, it is a decision he has made.   He has decided in the face of all earthly pains and earthly joys to follow Jesus his Lord and Saviour, even if it means the death of his flesh in this world.

    Our Scripture texts for this morning ask us, can we, will we, make the same decision?  Brothers and sisters, it's useless for us to say that we aren't like Pastor Youcef, that we don't live under a cruel Muslim regime where converting to Christianity is a capital crime.  Even if we lived under the most Church-friendly government possible, we'd still have to decide whether to take up our crosses.  Because denying ourselves isn't something that starts with facing death for the sake of Jesus Christ and the gospel; no, it's something we have to do every day.

    In 1 Corinthians 10 we read how our spiritual forefathers came out of Egypt.  They were all followers of God through Moses.  They all shared in the blessing of God's people.  They ate the manna the Lord gave from heaven.  They drank the water that sprang miraculously from the rock in the wilderness.  But their hearts were committed to the Lord and His will.  They weren't willing to trust the Lord and His servant Moses to lead them into the Promised Land.  In the desert, not certain where they were going, the children of Israel were called to deny themselves and follow God through hardship to true satisfaction and true life.  But as St. Paul reminds us, most of them chose to deny God instead.

    He summarizes how this played out: They committed idolatry, worshipping the Golden Calf, claiming it was a statue of the Lord Yahweh who'd brought them out of Egypt.  They committed sexual immorality.  They doubted God, even the Lord Christ, and put Him to the test as if God could somehow come up lacking.  They grumbled and griped about the food and the conditions, even though the Lord never let them go hungry, never let their shoes or clothes wear out, even though He worked amazing miracles in their sight and over and over assured them that He could always to be trusted.

    "Idolatry" truly describes all these sins, for what is idolatry?  It's worshipping anything or anybody more than the triune God who made heaven and earth.  Idolatry is selfishness, especially the selfishness that goes against what we know God wants for us.  It's gaining the whole world though it should cost us our souls.  Idolatry puts loyalty to ourselves, our wants, even to our fears ahead of faith in the God who made us.  We don't have to be following a pillar of cloud around in a barren wilderness to be tempted to idolatry.  It happens every time the will of the Lord and our will comes into conflict.  And tragically, like the Hebrews in the wilderness, we give into the temptation.  We know the Lord wants us to do good to another and we can do good to that other person, but we choose not to because it's inconvenient.   We let our anger and annoyance boil over because it's so satisfying to "express ourselves," instead of showing forgiveness as the Lord Jesus has forgiven us.  Idolatry is at the heart of the current debate over government-funded contraception. Idolatry claims us when we eat or drink more than we should, when we watch too much TV or surf the Internet too long though we truly have better things to do.  It's idolatry when we snipe at and gossip about one another because it's so satisfying to feel superior to those we're complaining about.  And I know exactly how it is because I am guilty of many of these things myself.

    Like St. Paul, I don't remind you of these things to make you feel down or discouraged.  Rather, like him I speak to you as sensible people who have the mind of Christ.  The first thing we need to accept is that we will be tempted to deny our Lord for the sake of ourselves and our own satisfaction.  But as we read in verse 13, "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man."  When you are tempted, there's no need to panic and say, "Oh, no one has ever faced this issue before, God cannot help me overcome it."  And there's no excuse to say, "This temptation is entirely new; God hasn't come up with a plan for this one."  No, God is faithful and God is strong.  He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.  He will provide you a way of escape, so you will be able to endure the temptation and not give in.

    In our Gospel reading from St. Mark It's significant that our Lord warns His disciples and the crowds about taking up their crosses and following Him shortly after Peter has confessed that Jesus is indeed the Christ.  If He were not the Christ, this command would be meaningless.  He'd have no right to ask us to override our own wills and even give up our lives for Him.  Peter would have been justified in trying to deter Him from going to Jerusalem and certain death.  If Jesus were not the promised Messiah and King, He could offer us no help and no reward when we take up our crosses daily for Him.  But Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  His blood did take away the sins of the world.  He is truly the One who has life in Himself, who can give it to all who believe in Him.  He is worthy that we should override our wants and desires to obey and give honor to Him and Him alone.

    Last night as I was putting the final touches on this sermon, I read online that Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani had indeed been executed, yesterday afternoon.  The report was not yet confirmed, but if it is true, our sadness for our brother is mixed with joy.  He has lost his life for Jesus' sake and the sake of the gospel, and therefore he has saved it.  You and I probably will not be called upon to shed our blood for our Lord.  Nevertheless, taking up our crosses begins and continues every day as we choose to love Him and our neighbor more than we love ourselves.  This would be too much for us, but it is not too much for Him.  Jesus Christ is He who took up the great cross for you, and He is with you always to help you carry your cross for His sake and the sake of the gospel.  In our time of decision He gives us everything we need to choose Him over ourselves.  We have the word of Christ to read and remember and apply to our own situations.  We have the Holy Spirit to strengthen us when we are weak and failing.  We have His sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, where we can see and feel and taste the truth of His love for us, where He renews in us the sacred reality of His death that wiped away our sins and His resurrection that gives us life forever more.

    Since this is so, come to the Table Jesus spreads for you.  Trust Him and know that even as you can taste and swallow the bread and the wine, just as surely His broken body and shed blood has purchased the forgiveness we need every day.  Come and take part in Jesus Christ and all His blessings, won for you on the cross.  Here with joy submit yourself to Him as His true disciple, and receive a foretaste of the true satisfaction and life that awaits you when the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.  In thankfulness and joy, decide for Him, for in grace and love Jesus Christ denied Himself and decided for you.  Amen.

Glory Reflected, Glory Obscured

Texts:    2 Corinthians 3:7 - 4:6;  Mark 9:1-13

    SOMETHING I'VE NOTICED THESE past few years, and I'm sure you've noticed it, too, is how people like to leave their Christmas lights up all year round.  Now, they don't call them Christmas lights.  But you know what I mean.  The little white lights that stay lit in the trees outside buildings all summer.  Even more, the artificial evergreen trees in offices and homes that change decorations depending on the season.  Now it's a Christmas tree, now it's for Valentine's, now it's decorated for Easter, now for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. 

    But always with lights.  Always with ornaments that glitter and shine.  Always echoing the glory that is Christmas.  We like glory.  We don't want it to fade away.   So we decide to keep the pretty lights burning all year round, and maybe the hope and optimism and sense of wonder and possibility will keep going, too.

    It's right to associate Christ and His birth with light and glory.  All of Jesus' life was glorious, in Who He was and what He did and in Who and where He is today, risen and glorified at the right hand of the Father.  Since that's true, it's hard to understand the gospel of Mark has so much about the glory of Jesus being hidden or concealed.

    From the first verse, we, the Christian reader, know that this Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  We read how John the Baptist came in the Spirit and power of Elijah, proclaiming that soon One would come who would baptise with the Holy Spirit.  And how when Jesus was baptised by John, the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit descended on Him like a dove, and the voice from heaven declared, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." 

    Isn't that glorious?  But immediately we see that same Spirit driving Jesus into the obscurity of the wilderness, to be tempted.  We hear Jesus forbidding the demons He cast out to talk about who He is.  Even though people in the villages are thrilled with His miraculous healing power, He won't remain there and soak up the fame.  Jesus heals a leper, and charges the man not to tell anyone what He, Jesus, has done.  Jesus teaches in parables, and tells His disciples that He does so in order that those outside of His followers would not be able to understand.

    Yet He keeps on performing miracles that could only be done by the finger of God alone.  Jesus, why all this obscurity?  Why not just come out and proclaim who You are, that you're the Messiah, the Holy One, the glorious promised King and Ruler of Israel?

    Then one day, near Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks His disciples, "Who do people say I am?"  And Peter answers, "You are the Christ."  (St. Matthew gives us more; in his gospel, we read that Peter went on to say that Jesus is the Son of the living God).  Well, at last!  Now would be the time for Jesus to declare His Messiahship all over Galilee and Judea, to march into Jerusalem and take up His crown and reign.

    But no.  After Peter confessed the truth about who Jesus was, our Lord strictly charged the disciples not to tell anyone about Him.  More than that, He began to teach them that He would suffer many things and be killed by the chief priests and scribes!  And He told His followers, not just the Twelve but also those in the crowd, that if they wanted to be His true disciples, they had to be willing to follow Him to crucifixion, too!  Where's the glory now, Jesus?  Why must it be so hidden, so obscured?

    But as Jesus was teaching His followers that they must be willing to suffer the most demeaning of martyrdoms for His sake, He added this amazing statement, which we find in verse 1 of chapter 9 of Mark's gospel:

    "Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power."

Which is to say, "Yes, many standing here certainly will drink the cup of martyrdom for My sake, but some of you before that will see that the kingdom of God has come with power."

    That is, something will open their eyes and they will see and understand the power and glory of God's kingship, where it had been obscured before.

    Six days later, Mark tells us Jesus took Peter and the brothers James and John up to a high mountain by themselves.  And there He is transfigured before them, appearing in garments blindingly white, beyond any earthly power to bleach them.  Moses and Elijah appear and confer with Jesus, Moses being the one to whom God gave the Law on Mount Sinai, and Elijah being the mightiest of the miracle-working prophets.  This, indeed, was a vision of the kingdom of God having come with power.  Why shouldn't Peter respond in awe and worship?  Why shouldn't he want to build all three of them tabernacles, where they could shelter, where God Most High could be adored in their holy presence?

    But this was not God's plan.  This was not the final demonstration of His power and glory that He meant to reveal.  A cloud overshadowed them all; the glorious scene was obscured, and a Voice said, "This is my beloved Son: listen to him."

    Listen to Jesus, you disciples of His, for He has something even more hidden and even more glorious to reveal to you.  When the cloud lifted, Jesus only was there.  And as they came down the mountain, He charged the three disciples not to tell anyone what they had seen.  He had wanted them to get this glimpse of His unveiled glory, but they were not to go about proclaiming it.  They weren't to give the other disciples and the crowds the idea that this revelation was the kingdom of God having come with power.  So they were to keep it hidden, obscured-- until the Son of Man, that is, Jesus, had risen from the dead.

    Risen from the dead.  What could that mean?  If nothing else, it meant that Jesus had to die.  How could this be, if Jesus indeed was the Christ and the long-expected King?  And what about the prophecy that Elijah must come first, to be the King's forerunner and prophet?

    Jesus assures them that Elijah-- in the person of John the Baptist-- has come.  And they-- the authorities-- beheaded him.  And the Son of Man, Christ the King, must suffer many things and be treated with contempt?  Coming down that mountain road, Jesus left Peter, James, and John with more questions than they started out with.

    Only in Jesus' death and resurrection is the obscurity cleared away and the mystery revealed.  The glory of Christ is His cross, and His power is the victory He won there over sin, Satan, and death.  It's something we never could have imagined, but now that God has done it, we can see that Christ's work of salvation for us and in us is indeed the kingdom of God come in glorious power.

    St. Paul spells it out for us in our reading from 2 Corinthians.  He speaks in verse 7 of the ministry of death coming with glory.  By this he refers to the Law, given to Moses on Mount Sinai.  The Law of God itself is great and glorious.  It reflects His truth, His purity, His righteousness and love.  It gave the pattern for the kind of people the Israelites were to be, to reflect His image in the world.  But in the end, the Law brought death, because it went to prove how weak, sinful, and inglorious we sinful humans are.  We break God's law, and we are broken on it.

    Yet it was glorious!  So glorious, that whenever Moses came out from God's presence, his face reflected God's glory, and he had to put a veil over his face and obscure it, so the people could bear to be around him.

    But, Paul says, that glory, the glory of the old covenant under the Law, was passing away.  By its very nature it was doomed to blind human eyes to God's plan for our salvation.  For the Law is all about our doing good, our being righteous, our trying to live up to God's standards-- or lowering them to our standards, when we fail.  Isn't that the normal human way of getting in good with God?  We feel we have to earn it.  We're convinced we have to strive to achieve our place in heaven.  "No guts, no glory!" is the motto.

    But in Christ, all that is taken away.  In Christ, we see the glory of His cross and what He did for us there.  In His resurrection and ascension we see that God the Father has put His stamp of approval on the deeds of His beloved Son, and in His gracious will we share the glory of Christ.  Like the kingdom of God, we have not fully arrived.  As we are made more like Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are brought from one degree of glory to another.  And this is not our doing, it is always thanks to the work of Christ on what seemed to be a very inglorious cross.

    So, with Paul and his companions, we do not lose heart.  There is much in our culture that criticises Christians, that says we are fools, that claims that we're in the dark and it's the unbelievers and skeptics who have the light of wisdom.  Even in the Church there are many who say that the gospel message of the cross is outdated, that it's veiled to the world and therefore we should discard it and give the world something they can understand.  Some so-called pastors (I've heard them called "goat-herders") would rather spend an hour telling funny stories about themselves instead of five minutes preaching Christ, because it draws a crowd.

    Sadly, the gospel is obscured to those who are perishing in this world, for Satan, the god of this world blinds their minds and keeps them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.  But there was a time when that was true of us, too.  And the obscured glory of God is brighter and stronger than the blatant so-called glory of Satan and this world, and His Spirit was strong to enlighten our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

    Peter, James, and John had the privilege of seeing Jesus gloriously transfigured on the mountain with Moses and Elijah.  We by the Holy Spirit have seen the kingdom of God having come with power in our own lives, though Jesus' death and resurrection.  Like the first disciples, all of us still have times of darkness and obscurity to go through, before we shall see our Lord face to face.  But let us not lose heart.  No, we won't lose heart, we won't be discouraged, because the glory of Christ shines within us and His Spirit keeps us.

    One thing more, and I'll close.  To share in Christ's glory is to share in His obedience.  Often we're told to do and dare great things for Christ, and we feel down and disheartened because we're not out in the field as missionaries or evangelizing so as to convert hundreds every day.  How glorious that would be!  Maybe I exaggerate, but you know the pressure.  We can't do that! we think, so we just go back to the obscurity of our everyday lives.  But maybe our everyday lives are exactly where Jesus wants us to glorify Him.  It's in our daily work, our relationships, our ordinary struggles and joys that we take up our crosses and follow Him, and it's there that we in ourselves truly see the kingdom of God having come in power.

    For we follow Jesus Christ and reflect His glory, the glory that can never fade, tarnish, or pass away.  Amen.

The Cost of Discipleship

Texts: Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33

DID YOU KNOW WHAT YOU were getting into when you became a Christian? Probably you were baptised as a baby. Most likely you went through Confirmation Class as a young teenager. Maybe you came to faith as an adult.  However it was, there was probably some event or process in your life when you chose to identify yourself as a follower of Jesus Christ. Did you sit down and consider the consequences? Or was being a Christian just the ordinary logical thing for someone in your time and place to be?

Jesus our Lord says we should count the cost before we commit to being His disciple. Now, on the divine level, from God's point of view, we have no choice at all. He has elected us from all eternity to be His, as it says in Ephesians 1:4 and 5: "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Christ Jesus, in accordance with his pleasure and will." His grace calls us to faith without our being able to resist it, as it says in John 6:37: "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away." His providence, not our works, keeps us bound to Christ for all eternity, as we read in John 6:39: "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given to me, but raise them up at the last day." But God works out His sovereign will for our salvation on the level of this world. He has us experience it from our human point of view. To those who find the idea of following Jesus attractive, our Lord says, "Take a good look at what believing in Me will mean. Come into it with your eyes open. Count the cost."

Luke says in Chapter 14, verse 25 that large crowds were following Jesus. He was preaching the kingdom of God, something all good Jews were looking forward to, especially in those days with the Romans occupying Israel. The kingdom of God would mean joy and feasting and power, with the saints of God-- that is, the Jews-- supreme over the nations when the Messiah came to rule the world. Jesus of Nazareth was talking and acting more like the Messiah all the time; who wouldn't want to follow him around and be there when He was crowned and king and started handing out the benefits?

In the same way, thousands, even millions of people nowadays are attracted to Jesus and Christianity by what they think it can offer them. Even people who call themselves Evangelicals. At the worst you have the Health-and-Wealth prosperity gospel types who believe that it's God's will that all Christians should be rolling in mansions and Rolls-Royces, you just need to exercise the power of faith. More subtly, and, I think, more dangerously, you have the people who think that being a Christian means discovering "God's wonderful purpose for your life" and learning the formula for having "your best life now." For them, Christian preaching means talks on improving your marriage and how to raise well-adjusted kids. As a lady at a church I used to pastor once said, "We want something nice to take home with us."

Jesus is adamant: None of that is what being His disciple means. He turns to the following crowds (and by His Spirit He turns to us) and says, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters— yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple."

So much for "gentle Jesus, meek and mild"! Does Jesus literally want us to violate God's commandments about honoring and taking care of our families? Is He ordering us to go against every law of human affection? Some cults would have us think so. But no. He is using a form of speech called hyperbole, because He wants to shock the multitudes-- and us-- out of our idolatrous visions of what being a disciple of Jesus is all about. Yes, you are to love and honor and cherish your father, your mother, your spouse, your children, your siblings. But compared to the love you have for God in Christ, that love should amount to hate. Yes, you are to nourish and protect your own body and not recklessly put yourself in the way of disease and danger. But compared to the new life Jesus offers, this mortal life should mean nothing to you at all. And if your love for your dearest friends and relations makes you compromise your commitment to Jesus, you cannot be His disciple. If you would rather deny Him than be persecuted or tortured or killed for the sake of the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified, you cannot be His.

Count the cost, you who would more than His follower be. Discipleship entails self-discipline. Jesus says, "And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Not follow Him around like groupies trailing after a rock band, but walk in His footsteps as He toils up the hill of Calvary. A cross always meant death to those Jews following Jesus. Once the Roman soldier had laid that cross on you, you were going to die. Not all of Jesus' disciples have been called to undergo actual crucifixion or some other death for His sake. But all of us He calls to be dead to this world, dead to our own desires, dead to even the best things this life has to offer, and alive only to His mastership and His will.

What is the cost of being Jesus' disciple? Simply, everything. Everything we have and everything we are. Nothing can be allowed to take precedence of Him.

Jesus hammers the point home by giving us three parables or figures: the builder, the weak king, and salt.

I've gradually been renovating my house for the last seven years. The other day I got a call from a contractor wondering if I was ready to redo my bathroom. No. Not now. The funds just aren't there. Jesus speaks of a man who wants to build a tower. If he's sensible, he'll make the same sort of deliberations. A half-finished tower is really visible and will bring a lot of derision. In the same way, anyone who wants a part in the kingdom of God has to be aware that everyone will be looking at his life expecting it to reflect what they know of Christ and His lordship. Living the Christian life will not bring ease and earthly fulfillment; it'll take everything we've got.

Then Jesus talks about a king. A king with the bigger force is coming at this king's little city-state: what should he do? For attacks are sure to come at us from the world, the flesh, and the devil when we identify ourselves with the cause of Christ. Will we be ready to fight the good fight of the faith, or will we just cave in?

John Calvin, in his Commentary on the Gospels, writes this: "The statements which our Lord makes to this effect must not be applied . . . as if we were to enter into any compromise with our spiritual foe, when our strength and resources fail. It would be idle to treat parables as applying in every minute point to the matter in hand. But our Lord simply means that we ought to be so well prepared, as not to be taken by surprise for want of a proper defense, or basely to turn our backs . . . The design of Christ, therefore, is to warn his followers to bear the cross, that they may prepare themselves with courage." Troubles will come even though we are Christians! Troubles will come because we are Christians! Jesus says we have to give up everything to be His disciple, including the foolish idea that being His will mean everything will be easy and safe and secure with us.

People of Muslim background who become Christians experience this firsthand. For them, letting "goods and kindred go, this mortal life also" is not just a line in a hymn, it's a daily reality. It comes with being Christ's disciple. They know what giving up everything to be Jesus' disciple is all about. If we live our lives thinking belonging to Christ is supposed to be easy, we'll compromise with the world, the flesh, and the devil the first time a real difficulty presents itself.

And then there is the image of salt. Jesus, and Luke, assume that His hearers will know that the figurative salt that preserves and purifies in this present age is the word of God and the people of God who take that word into the world. Jesus says, "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" Physical salt, sodium chloride, can lose its saltiness by being so mixed in with other elements that it becomes corrupted and impure. Or the salts can be leached out of it by outside influences. Either way, it's no good even for the compost heap. Indeed, it'd do the soil a lot of damage if you put it in.

So if our lives are preaching a false, corrupted gospel, or if we corrupt and falsify the gospel to give an excuse for our unChristlike lives, we are like that worthless salt. No, we have to be ready to stand up for the pure faith once for all delivered to the saints.

What is the cost of discipleship? Taking up our cross in total surrender to our Lord Jesus Christ. It costs us everything we have and everything we are.

But I've noticed: Often we can accept the possibility of physical martyrdom for the faith, at least in theory. There's something stirring and noble about the idea. What's harder is when God calls us to bear the cross in lesser matters, every day of our lives.

Think of the situation of Philemon of Laodicea. Clearly Philemon is a man of position and means. He lives in a commodious house. He owns slaves. Philemon is also a Christian, converted by the apostle Paul himself.

We can assume that his whole household, slave or free, professed faith in Christ at the same time. But not the slave Onesimus. One fine day he helped himself to some of his master's goods and ran off for Rome.

And now he has been found, and has returned to Laodicea, bearing a letter. Philemon had every right to sell such a worthless slave (ironic, since "Onesimus" means "useful") to the salt mines, or to the arena to be fodder for the wild beasts. He had every civil right to demean him as a worker and as a man. Philemon's pagan neighbors would have expected no less.

But the letter Onesimus bears is from Paul himself. Onesimus, he writes, has become his son in their common faith. He now belongs to Christ. So Paul is sending him back to Philemon, "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave-- as a dear brother." And not just as any brother: Philemon is to receive this formerly thieving, useless, runaway slave as he would St. Paul himself!

Did Philemon have any idea that that was ahead of him when he committed to being a disciple of Jesus Christ? What would such unthinkable mercy mean for his relations with his other Christian slaves? What would the pagan neighbors say? Why, if such unmasterlike behaviour caught on, it could disrupt the economic system of the entire Roman world!

But the duty to welcome Onesimus back wholeheartedly and with honor was now Philemon's cross and the cost of his discipleship. Church history tells us he accepted that burden, for it tells us that Onesimus ended up as the beloved bishop of the church in Ephesus.

This is the kind of cross-bearing God demands of us when we heed Christ's call to be His disciple. He doesn't want imaginary dramatic sacrifices we may never be called to make; rather he requires the ordinary, everyday self-denials we may wish were none of God's business. Like saying Yes to service we'd rather shirk. Giving time to others when we'd rather have it for ourselves. Remaining faithful when a loved one dies or when the doctor tells us we have a terrible disease. Saying No to desires and activities and even people when they come between us and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Because, you know what? When God's good grace makes us Jesus' disciples, we become His slaves. We belong to Him totally, for He has bought us with His precious blood. You might say, "In that case, I've counted the cost and sorry, Jesus, I'm out of here. I'd rather live free." Ah, but if you will not be a slave of Christ and owe everything to Him, you will remain a slave to sin, and your wages will be death.

Humanly-speaking, it's impossible for us to make the total surrender Jesus requires. But God Himself gives us the strength and will to be His disciple, through the merit and mercy of His Son Jesus Christ. His word is His preserving and purifying salt in us, and His Holy Spirit enables us to be salt in this dying world. The price that would be too much for you to pay He has paid for you.

What is the cost of Christian discipleship? All you have and all you are. What is its reward? Jesus and all His riches in glory. I'd say the sacrifice is worth it. And now in the name of Christ I ask, is it worth it to you?