Count the Cost in Following Christ

Luke 14:25-33

²⁵Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶"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. ²⁷And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

²⁸"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? ²⁹For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, ³⁰saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

³¹"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³²If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Introduction

Many years ago I led a family to Christ in a mission campaign.

This poor family had few children attending school far away from their village.

Every morning the local authority will send a school bus to pick them and other children to school for free.

When the authority found that this family embraced Christian faith, they began to change their own rules by charging them bus fares.

Eventually the family was threatened to pay bus fares or to give up Christianity!

When I heard that the parents decided to hold on to the Christian faith and gave up education because they have no money to pay bus fares, I just could not control my tears.

In the same village, many Christians faced similar situations.

They were bullied and persecuted in one way or another.

However those hardships did not stop them from coming to the Lord.

Neither those difficulties stop us preaching the gospel to them.

In order to help these new Christians, we bought a van and sent a Church worker to bring them to school and even gave them free tuitions.

Further on we built a wooden church for them.

The story did not stop there.

Months later, the wooden church was being torn down by anti-Christian mobs.

These mobs came from other villages belong to the faith of the majority.

After much prayer, we decided to bring this issue to the higher authority through Christian organisations.

Thank God after some months, a local court summoned these mobs to recompense the church double the building cost.

Eventually we rebuilt the church with bricks instead of a wooden one like the former.

These things happened in the villages of the native people, the aborigines in Malaysian Peninsular.

I can tell you stories after stories about how much cost some people had to pay in order to follow Christ.

1. Message Today

In today’s gospel reading, we see the challenges ahead of those who wish to follow Christ.

These challenges given by Christ were not exclusively few but much to do with the principles lie behind.

a. Firstly, Jesus said you must leave your family in order to follow him.

During the time of Jesus’ ministry, the disciples did not feel the tension or smell anything about persecution.

But Jesus forewarned them the time would come where there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three.

They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. (Luke 12:52-53).

The leaving from families became not a voluntary action but many a times were helpless decisions to be made.

I knew of a Chinese brother who was imprisoned for at least 3 times because of his faith in Christ.

During one of his imprisonments, the police broke his knees.

The church members took him home and prayed for him.

He was miraculously healed 3 months later.

When I met him in a trip in China, he told me that he had been away from home for years only to escape more persecution from the police.

He had to run from one place to another and did not see his family for years.

Many such stories are taking place in the remote areas of China and other countries where Christianity is seem to be a threat to the authorities or people of other faiths.

b. Secondly, Jesus said that you must love him more than anyone or anything else.

We should not misunderstand that Jesus wants us to be hateful to our dear ones.

Here is a way of expressing the contrast of different standard of love.

The love we love Christ should supersede everything and comparatively so much so that your love towards others including your dear ones is much out bitten.

Loving Christ does not mean the abandonment of affection with people.

Instead, it is a paradox while a person embraces the love of Christ while abandoning the love of all others, he or she would embrace much more love than before.

Here is the example of the Apostle Paul.

He loved Christ so much and considered all things as rubbish. (Phil 3:8)

At the end, Paul gained more friendship than ever.

Look at the friendship between Paul and Philemon and Onesimus.

Onesimus was once useless to both Philemon and Paul.

But then he became useful. (Philemon 11).

It is believed that Onesimus was a ran away slave to Philemon.

He transgressed against Philemon and fled to the site of Paul’s imprisonment to escape punishment for a theft he had committed.

He then heard the Gospel from Paul and converted to Christ.

Paul urged Philemon to reconcile with Onesimus.

That showed the strong bond of love within the Christian faith.

The Chinese brother I met more about 15 years ago has been faithful preaching the gospel to hundreds of people.

Together with other faithful workers of the Lord, they formed another huge family of Christ in gospel action.

This is the paradox: you gave up and therefore you embraced.

c. Thirdly, carry your cross and follow Christ.

Two issues were emphasised here.

One is to carry a cross.

That denotes a cost to be counted.

Secondly is to carry your own cross.

No one should let down his own cross nor should anyone carry someone else crosses.

Each person has his own cross to carry.

A story was told about a man who complained about his cross and wanted to have a change.

With permission he chose a lighter and shorter cross for himself.

In his heavenward route there comes a gap where he needs to use his cross as a bridge to cross over.

The real test comes by as he realised that cross he chose was too short and could not reach the other end of the gap.

In his furious, there comes the angel bringing the right cross for him.

This original cross finally enabled him to cross over.

This is an analogy about carrying our own cross, not others’.

2. What are the lessons?

How can we Australian Christians to be disciples of Christ?

What does it mean to us to hate our family in order to follow Christ?

We are not in the first century of Christendom where believers were persecuted by the Jews and Romans.

Neither are we like the Christian brothers and sisters in many third world countries facing different degrees and levels of persecutions.

Somehow the message is clear.

Whether we like it or not, we are in an era where the Christian faith is fading away due to secularism.

Sometimes we loved our cultures so much and we dare not to “hate” them.

Sometimes we are so protective to our social and political behaviours and we wish not to stand up and make our voices heard.

Bills against Christian ethics and biblical teachings have been passing by the authorities, one by one and bit by bit.

The rising of humanism overshadowed the authority of God’s word.

As Paul described, “…the secret power of lawlessness is already at work…” (2 Thess 2:7).

People are getting use to all these lawlessness and don’t feel the urgency.

That is to say we are comfortably enjoy our lives and wish not to be disturbed and so therefore would not disturb others.

The end result of such attitudes is only one - dropped dead.

Let us count the cost and follow Christ.

Do not think that you are able to continue to survive in your comfort zones.

If you do not shake the world, the world is going to shake you.

Christchurch NZ had severe earthquake early morning yesterday.

Thank God there was no serious casualty.

But let us think in terms of the spiritual earthquake in our minds, our families, our societies and the nations.

To stop spiritual earthquake taking place, we need to practice spiritual paradox: shake before you are shaken.

Shake the people around you before you are shaken by them.

Many years ago, when I challenge the church leaders to consider reaching out to some native people groups, the answer from one of the leaders was, “Don’t disturb them!”

He was trying to say, “let them continue to be in their spiritual poverty as well as physical poverty!”

Of course I did not stop there.

Eventually we managed to bring hundreds of people to Christ through our mission campaign.

Conclusion

Cane toads are not welcome in Australia.

I heard documentary of how people kill them by wrapping them in plastic bags and put them into a freezer.

These toads in freezer will not feel pain but lose conscious and died eventually.

Similarly if we put a frog in a pot of water and start boiling it, the frog will not struggle as the water becoming warmer eventually boiled.

Satan has been doing the same tricks to humankinds.

The more we submerge into our so called comfort zones, guess what?

We would be cook unconsciously.

As today is my first Sunday as a rector of St Marks, I would like to challenge you to forget what you are comfortable with and walk with me and straining toward what is ahead, and press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus.

These are familiar words of Paul from Phil 3:13-14.

After much prayer, I intend to reach out to the Chinese working class immigrants in the near future.

This will involve a lot of human and financial resources.

Therefore I covet your prayers and supports in one way or another.

I know you have your own cross to carry.

But if you think you want to walk the way of the cross together with me, you are welcome.

May God grant you strength and courage for his glory and honour.

Amen.

Induction/welcome service

The induction and welcome service for the new rector will be held at 7.45pm Monday 30th August 2010.

Who set the rules?

Luke 13:10-17

¹⁰On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, ¹¹and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." ¹³Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

¹⁴Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."

¹⁵The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? ¹⁶Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"

¹⁷When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

Introduction

One day a little girl who’d returned from a Sunday school and exclaimed what she’d learned.

That Sunday, the teacher taught her about “Omni-presence”, part of the nature of God.

To make sure she heard the right thing, the little girl put her findings to her mum.

“Is God everywhere?” she asked.

Her mum said, “Yes! God is everywhere.”

“You mean God is in the sky at the same time here in this room being with us?” asked the girl.

“Yes indeed! God is.” The mum answered.

At the moment, the little girl was holding an empty bottle.

Without second thought she asked again, “You mean God is outside the garden at the same time in this bottle?”

A bit hesitate, the mum answered, “Em… Yes! Why not? God is Omni-presence. He is everywhere. He is in heaven, here on earth, of course He is also presence in the bottle!”

While thinking she has given her daughter a good answer, suddenly she saw her daughter covers the lid of the bottle tightly and exclaimed, “Hey! Now I have God in my bottle!”

This is a typical illustration of how people understand God and at the same time try to limit Him.

I remember many years ago, there was a popular Sunday school song called “I wish I have a little white box.”

Here is the lyrics:

I wish I had a little white box

To put my Jesus in

I'd take him out and kiss, kiss, kiss (put hand to mouth and act like you are giving Jesus a kiss)

And put Him back again. (OR And show him to my friends)

I wish I had a little black box

To put the devil in

I'd take him out and spank, spank, spank (clap hands together)

And put him back again.

You may think the song is funny but in fact it is quite misleading.

Whether God or the devil, they are spiritual beings supersede natural dimension.

We cannot put Jesus in a box and take him out as we wish.

Neither can we put the devil in and out of a box.

More so, we are warned not to slander the devil.

Jude 1:19 -- But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"

Today, our focus is not on the devil.

1. Message Today

Today, our focus is not on the devil.

Our focus is on Jesus.

a. First of all, Jesus is the greatest Teacher ever.

He taught not only in synagogues but at opened places and homes.

Most importantly, he taught with authority.

A similar incident took place at Capernaum where Jesus was teaching at a synagogue on a Sabbath day and eventually set a person free from an evil spirit. (cf. Mark 1:21-27).

When the people hear what Jesus taught, they were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

In Jesus’ time, the teachers of the law used to add their own interpretations and eventually caused confusions and burdens to the hearers.

The Lord Jesus once commented that these so called experts in the law loaded people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and they themselves would not lift one finger to help the people. (cf. Luke 11:46).

b. Jesus performs miracles.

Jesus did not just teach but also perform miraculous healing for those who were possessed or ill.

John acknowledged that Jesus was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1).

Jesus’ spoken word carries the creative power over all aspects of life physically and spiritually.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:3).

Under His command, winds and storms died down and calmed. (Mark 4:39).

Under His order, evil spirits were casted out and people were set free.

The lame walks, the blind sees.

c. Thirdly, Jesus has compassion on those who are under bondage.

The bible said when Jesus saw the woman who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." (Luke 13:11-12).

Jesus took the initiation to heal this woman shows the passion he has.

Jesus did not want to see her continue to suffer and bound by Satan.

He wants his people free.

d. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.

Sabbath is set by God for his people to rest and worship God.

Nowhere in the bible mentioned that God forbids people from doing good on Sabbath.

The Lord said, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6).

Most importantly, Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. (Matthew 12:8).

When a priest serves in the temple on Sabbath, he is not considered breaking the law.

It has therefore nothing wrong with Jesus the Great High Priest of God to perform healing on Sabbath.

The only problem was they did not know Jesus is the Great High Priest of God.

2. What are the lessons?

a. First of all, we must listen to Jesus’ teaching which is authoritative.

Authority does not come from human traditions or philosophies.

Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Matt 24:35).

If you are honest, you must admit that many things we learned in the past are not always useful nowadays.

Some became irrelevant and some just untrue.

I remember when I was young, the elderly people used to tell us “Don’t run when a dog comes to you. Be calm. The dog won’t bite you.”

One day when I passed by a place with some other children, few dogs came to us.

All other children ran for their lives except me who naively believed those words of these so called wise elderly people of the village.

Guess what?

I’d got a bite!

b. Secondly, have faith in the Lord Jesus who performs miracles and heals.

Many a times we concentrate too much on our difficulties and lose heart on the Lord.

We become problem orientated and not Christ centred.

Many years ago I was invited to a parish to conduct a healing and evangelistic meeting.

At the altar call, a parishioner came up asking for a healing prayer.

I did not know her exact illness but just commenced her to the Lord’s care.

Months later, her priest called and thanked me on behalf of the lady.

She was having a cancerous lump at the neck.

After the prayer, she went back home and found the lump burst.

Her doctor was amazed to find no trace of cancerous cells there.

I can give you many accounts on how people’s problems being solved by leaning on Jesus and have faith in Him alone.

c. Thirdly, don’t set rules and regulations that stop God’s blessing channelling through us.

What is tradition?

Tradition is doing something on and on and eventually lost trace of why we are doing it?

Don’t be tradition orientated because there are so many varieties.

Be it racial traditions.

Be it cultural differences.

Be it personal or family backgrounds.

All these will eventually make us suspicious to each other.

We love each other because we are one in the body of Christ.

We respect each other because we are all created in the image of God.

Let us talk more about Christ’s embracing love and not our differences.

Conclusion

In closing, I would to read “The prayer of St. Francis” to you.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Be Watchful (Lk 12:32-40)

Luke 12:32-40

³²"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. ³³Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

³⁵"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, ³⁶like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. ³⁷It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. ³⁸It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. ³⁹But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

Introduction

There was a story about a man who was worried that the sky would one day collapse.

He had no joy at all.

After some counselling from his friends he became happier, but it wasn’t long before he started worrying about the earth.

He worried that one day the earth would sink.

Though this story sounds ridiculous, but the fact is many of us are bound to worry about certain things.

Some could be worrying about their jobs, some about their families or their health.

One day a church minister called up a parishioner because he has not attended church for long.

He became ill because of overworking.

The minister asked why he was overworked.

The answer he gave was that he has two jobs.

When asked why he needs two jobs, he said because he need more money for his mortgages and many luxurious entertainment appliances bought on credit.

The minister further asked him why, he told the minister he wanted all these appliances for relaxation.

He said every now and then he would sit on the lounge and so called enjoy his music and movies.

In order to make this man realise his situation, the minister continues to press on him and ask, “Why do you need these so called relaxations?”

Guess what’s the answer?

“I need these relaxations so that I can be relaxed and gain more strength for more work and more jobs.”

Do you see the point?

This man has fell into a vicious cycle: more jobs for more money and so became more tired and need more relaxations so he buys more entertaining stuffs and therefore need more jobs for more money!

Don’t be surprised.

I have seen many of such people in the church and everywhere.

Many parishioners came to me and said, “I wish I could have spent more time with my wife, my children.

I wish I could have spent more time equipping myself in the word of God and reaching out to friends and relatives who need words of comfort.”

Believe me. I have never heard someone telling me, “I wish I have spent more time in my work.” Nor “I wish I have spent more time on this or that TV program.”

1. The background

The Gospel passages we have just read (Luke 12:32-40) are part of the words of Christ in preparing his followers for God’s kingdom.

On their way to Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus was preparing his followers to understand the meaning of following Christ.

Last Sunday, we talked about the rich fool who invested his whole life on worldly possessions and ended up losing his soul.

Mark 8:36 reminded us, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”

At the end of my sermon, I mentioned about investment on the Words of God and human beings.

These are two investments with eternal values.

Again, in Luke 12:32-34, Jesus urged his followers to do the right investment, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted…”

More so, Jesus’ followers were challenged to be on guard by having their lamps burning while waiting for the coming of His glory.

Jesus said, “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.” (Luke 12:35-36)

Jesus meant to remind them to press on witnessing for him until the day comes.

In the New Testament reading from Hebrews 11, we learned from the servants of God who set their hearts on above.

By faith they invested their lives, believing and trusting the Creator God who promises and provides, for the things in the world to come.

Abraham, for instance, did not see things happened during his life time.

The writer of Hebrews described, “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.” (Heb 11:13)

Abraham’s descendents received the Promised Land only after about 700 years later.

According to writer of this New Testament Epistle, the actual Promised Land is yet to come for “they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.” (Heb 11:16).

2. What are the lessons?

If we put the above passages together, we could figure out what Paul had to say in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

a. Firstly, let us look at “faith”

Based on Jesus’ terminology “Faith” means “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

Faith is initiated by God the Father granted to those who believed and received Jesus.

The subject of faith is all about the kingdom of heaven and not the things of the world.

To some people, faith is one of the world's great evils, the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable….

But for the people of God, faith is the foundation of our trust in God.

It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Heb 11:1-3)

b. Secondly, hope is a quality of our hearts that generates strength that overcomes fears and helplessness.

In Jesus’ time, the real worries and fears have yet to take place in the hearts of his followers.

Jesus preached on this subject to prepare his followers in facing difficulties and persecution in the future.

After Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, in the course of the early church history, the body of Christ faced strong and severe persecution.

Stephen became the first martyr.

James the brother of John became the first apostle died under the sword of Herod.

Hope is something they needed to hold on to.

This hope is based on the resurrection of Jesus.

In 1 Cor 15, Paul clearly pointed out, “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.

c. The last but not the least is Love.

In fact Paul said that love is the greatest among the three.

The greatest commandment given by our Lord Jesus is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matt 22:37-39)

This is summed up from Deuteronomy 6:5 (Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength) and Leviticus 19:18 (Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD).

Look at the sign of a cross.

There are a vertical piece of wood and the other a horizontal.

The vertical one symbolises the love of God coming down from heaven through our Lord Jesus.

It also reminds us of our devotion and love towards God.

Christ made the communications between God and men possible.

The horizontal piece symbolises the expansion of God’s love embracing those who seek rest and come to him.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28)

This horizontal stretching sign of a cross also reminds us the love we stretch out to others.

We are to become witnesses of God’s love.

Conclusion

The Gospel passage for today reminds us to love our neighbours and being watchful for the coming of the Master.

To be effective, we need to be God-centred and then people-centred

The similarities between people who worry and are anxious are their selfishness and self-centredness.

We need to trust God the Lord of providence.

We need to be watchful and not to fall into worldly temptations.

We need to have a heavenward faith like the saints who sing “this world is not my home!”, “We’re Marching to Zion”….

I would like to close this sermon with the hymn of Isaac Watts “We're Marching to Zion” (Music by Robert Lowry 1705) which is based on Jeremiah 31:6 “For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God.”

1. Come, we that love the Lord,
And let our joys be known;
Join in a song with sweet accord,
And thus surround the throne.

Refrain:
We’re marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching upward to Zion,
The beautiful city of God.

2. The sorrows of the mind
Be banished from the place;
Religion never was designed
To make our pleasures less.

3. Let those refuse to sing,
Who never knew our God;
But children of the heav’nly King
May speak their joys abroad.

4. The men of grace have found
Glory begun below;
Celestial fruits on earthly ground
From faith and hope may grow.

5. The hill of Zion yields
A thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Or walk the golden streets.

6. Then let our songs abound,
And every tear be dry;
We’re marching through Immanuel’s ground
To fairer worlds on high.

Parish Trivia Night

Saturday 21st August 6.45pm at the Brick Hall. Entry $10. BYOG and nibblies.

Ladies Evening Fellowship

Meeting at 7pm in the church grounds on Friday 6th August for dinner together at the Lidcombe Catholic Club (Dooleys).

Wednesday Noontide Holy Communion

Please be reminded:

4th August 2010

12.00 noon

Refreshment at Brick Hall at 12.35pm