For us there's a cost. For them there was a cost. Joseph would be excommunicated no longer,
losing his position, his wealth, his influence, everything that he had. It would be a loss. And
for the early church, if you read the book of Acts, Israel disregarded the fact that they could not
commit inflict capital punishment. That's why they couldn't kill Jesus. But you read the book of Acts,
you see they didn't care, they stoned Stephen. Paul was getting permission, Saul of Tarsus,
to bring people to prison, to kill them. He was getting his own personal permission. There was
great persecution of the church. In fact, and as bad as that was, we don't experience it in this
country. In other countries they do. In the last hundred years, and I've said this before,
Fox's book of martyrs, which you can read starting with the Apostles all the way through,
all the martyrs in the past, different people that it cost them their life to follow Jesus Christ.
You add up 1900 years, put them together, it doesn't equal the last 100 years of persecution
that's gone on in the world. They're updating that book because of the intense persecution that's
going on across the globe. In America, we don't experience it. We pray for other countries,
but other countries are praying for us for lethargy because this country is falling asleep.
There's a different persecution. There's a different battle, right? This country,
all these churches that were alive and they taught the Bible and people loved Jesus Christ,
they're not doing that anymore. But there was a cost and they knew it. These guys knew it.
Jesus said this, you can't serve two masters. It's impossible. And Nicodemus and Joseph both
experienced that. I can't be a part of this anedrine and follow Jesus Christ. I can't live in this world
and in the next. I can't, the worst place to be for a Christian is to try to ride this fence of
having a foot in the world and a foot in the kingdom. It's terrible. And they knew it. They
experienced it and they made a stand. Jesus said you can't serve two masters. Why? Because you'll
love one and you'll hate the other. You can pretend to love both, but you can't. Jesus said
if you're gonna be a disciple, you need to take up your cross. What does that mean? That means to
lay down your will for the sake of someone else's. And when Jesus took up his cross,
his prayer was, you know, Father remove this cup from me. Nevertheless not my will, but your will
be done. That's the whole idea. When you take up your cross, you're saying, alright Lord, here we go.
I'm gonna follow you and there's gonna be a cost, a price to pay. It's gonna affect my family, my job,
my, I don't know what it's gonna affect, the people that it's gonna affect or impact. But here we go.
Because I trust you more than I trust in myself. I'm gonna follow you and not my own path, my own
direction. There's a line in the sand. And Jesus said you have to, you cannot be, he doesn't say
you might be able to be my disciple. He said you can't. You can't be my disciple unless you take up
your cross and follow me. And there's a cost to that. Turn to Matthew chapter 10. We're gonna look
at just a few verses.
Jesus warns he's sending the Apostles out. He's instructing them, commissioning them. He has a lot
to say. We don't have time to, you can mark this chapter if you want. But basically Jesus in verse
16 says, behold as I'm sending you out, I'm sending you a sheep among wolves. That can be a scary
place if you're a sheep. Therefore be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove. And then he says,
beware of men. They'll deliver you up to councils. That's the very thing that Jesus was delivered up
to. They'll deliver you up to councils and they'll scourge you in their synagogues. Exactly what
happened to Jesus. You'll be brought before governors and kings for my name's sake. Exactly
what happened to Jesus. Jesus will say a servant isn't above his master. If they did this to me,
they're gonna do this to you. And when they deliver you up, don't worry about how or what you should
speak. It will be given you in that hour what you should speak. For it's not you who speak, but the
spirit of your father who speaks in you. And brother, listen, brother will deliver up brother.
That's the scary thing to death. A father, his child, and children will rise up against parents
and cause them to be put to death. You'll be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to
the end will be saved. And when they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly I say
to you, you'll not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. And then he
says, a disciple is not above his teacher nor a servant above his master. They've done this to me.
They'll do this to you. Listen, there was a cost. Jesus made the disciples aware of the cost and
the price that it's not gonna be easy. It's not an easy thing to follow Jesus Christ. In this country,
it's a little bit different battle. You're not worried if you go to work that somebody's gonna
take you out and stone you or, oh you're a Christian. Are you the one that put the track on the
lunch table? Get them. You're not worried about that. In other countries they are. In other
countries they have to meet privately, secretly. And if soldiers come to the door, you could be
killed. It's going on today. We pray for people like that all the time. And you read the book of
Acts, it happens. Turn to Luke chapter 12 for a second. We looked at this months ago.
You see the ranks thin as you follow the Gospels. People that are following Jesus,
these this multitude that's so excited to watch Jesus perform miracles, listen to him teach. You
see the more Jesus speaks, the more he does. The crowds don't keep growing. It lessens. It gets
smaller. Why? Because what Jesus says is very challenging. And some people depart. In chapter
12 here we read this in verse 1. In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had
gathered together so that they trampled one another, he began to say to his disciples. So
there's this this massive amount of people couldn't number them and they're trampling. It's like a
concert. They're trampling on each other or a soccer game in Europe. They're trampling on each
other and with no regard for each other in some ways, pushing each other. You've been there. You've
been to a Bill's game somewhere. He says this. Here's the warning. He says, watch out for the
leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, pretending. He says the Pharisees aren't who
you think they are. There's leaven and always negative, very often negatively connotation.
It's a reference to sin so many times. He says, watch out for hypocrisy. People that are pretending
at that time, Joseph and Nicodemus are pretending to a degree. He says, there'll be nothing covered
that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in
the dark will be heard in the light and what you've spoken in the ear in the inner rooms will be
proclaimed in the housetops. I say to you, my friends, don't be afraid of those who killed the
body. That was a real thing. Don't be afraid of those who killed the body and after that have no
more that they can do to you. But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear Him who after He has
killed has power to cast into hell. Yes, I say fear Him. And then he talks about his care over
people's lives. If you wonder if someone cares about what you're going through or what you're
doing, he says this because he's talking about death and people following him and how that will
affect their life. And he says, look at this in verse six, are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins and
not one of them is forgotten before God? But every hair of your head, they're all numbered. Don't fear
therefore. You're of more value than many sparrows. Jesus said, listen, your life is of value. What you go
through is of value. The things you lose, your sacrifice, maybe even your life, don't think, oh,
well, it's too bad. Sorry. No, God knows. And it may come to that. You may lose a lot. This country is
not immune to that potential at some point. And then he says this in verse eight, I say to you,
whoever will confess me before man, the Son of Man will confess before the angels of God,
but he who denies me before man will be denied before the angels of God. And anyone who speaks
a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him. But to him who blasphemes against the Holy
Spirit, it will not be forgiven him. What does that mean? Every sin is forgiven except for one.
Anything that you've ever done would be forgiven except for one. And you can imagine, Paul the
Apostle was a murderer. There's people who have done horrific things. There's testimonies. I love
to hear testimonies. I love people's testimony of who they were. And God reaches into their life and
who they become, the change. But one sin won't be forgiven. You'll stand before the Lord one day and
there's one sin that won't be forgiven. That's the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And what is that?
Is that a swear word? No, it's rejection of the Holy Spirit. And what's the Holy Spirit's job is
to lead people to Jesus Christ. He will lead you. He'll convict the world of sin, righteousness,
and judgment. The Holy Spirit comes alongside you and says, you need Jesus. You need a Savior. You
need your sins forgiven. You're not going to heaven. And he'll remind you and he'll send people
into your life. And if you continue to close that off and shut your ears to that fact and move on
and one day you're gonna stand before the Lord, that's the one sin, the ultimate sin. You won't
be forgiven because you've rejected Calvary. Everything that you've done, every sin that
you've committed, you've rejected the payment for that as Jesus Christ. And they'll bring you to
synagogues, verse 11, and magistrates and authorities. Don't worry about how or what you
should answer or what you should say. The Holy Spirit will teach you that very hour what you
should say. Turn to Luke 14 with me for a second. Verse 25, Jesus says this, there's less people
there. Verse 25, it says, now great multitudes went with him. It's not an innumerable multitude,
it's just great multitudes, which is still a lot of people, but it's less. And he turned to them
and said, now Jesus isn't saying, all right, how do I get the crowds back? I gotta get that
innumerable multitude back. No, he doesn't say that. Less people are there. Jesus says this,
if you come to me and don't hate your father and your mother and your wife and your children,
your brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life, you can't be my disciple. Wait a second,
that is not gonna increase the crowds here. You gotta hate everybody? No, Jesus isn't teaching
people to hate. Jesus is comparing your love for him, his love for you, compared to everyone
else's love and how you care about somebody else. He says, listen, if you're putting that
person ahead of me, you don't really love me. If you're putting yourself ahead of me,
not taking up your crowd, you don't really love me. Jesus would say, I came to bring a sword,
not peace. Division, it's gonna be hard, right? Because people are gonna have to make a choice,
and some people in the very same family, in the very same home, maybe your spouse,
you make a choice to follow Christ and they make a choice to follow themselves, their flesh,
their sinful appetite, whatever they wanna call it. And then there's a division. It can be
very hard in a home when the Bible would maybe call it, you're unequally yoked. That you wake
up Sunday morning, I wanna go to church, I wanna hear a Bible study, I wanna listen to this podcast,
whatever it is. And your spouse wants nothing to do with it, doesn't wanna know about the Lord,
you can't talk to him or her, discuss the things of God. Jesus would go on and say,
whoever doesn't bear his cross and come after me, you can't be my disciple. Which of you intending,
and this is where he talks about a cost, which of you intending to build a tower doesn't sit down
first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it. Lest after he's laid the foundation,
he starts, man, we're gonna get this thing going, gets everything working, gets the basement dug,
gets the walls up. And then you're like, dude, I can't finish this thing. I don't have any money
for it. I'll just, and you leave it. If you've ever been on a mission trip to a third world country,
a lot of times you see buildings that start and they never finish. Like it looks like,
are they working on that? Then you go back a couple years later, that's the same scaffolding
that was there three years ago. Is anybody working on this? And they're not working on it. As they
get money, they might do something, but, and they leave it because there's a cost to following
Christ. There's a cost for your life. If you're really following Christ, does it mean, I'm gonna
go home and hate my spouse. No, you love your spouse. You love your kids. You love people.
There's, Jesus taught us to do that, to love our enemies. When he's talking about following
him and him being first, so important. We won't turn there, but if you read Acts chapter 19,
as Paul's ministering in Ephesus, you see that they're worshiping this goddess, Diana,
sensual goddess, very lucrative. People were making idols and doing all these things and people were
getting saved and it was freaking out the people who were making those idols because they were
losing money. People weren't buying them. They weren't going to these things that they were doing.
This great temple was there. People weren't going to the temple and it freaked people out,
but in that moment, it says that people began to go out and they burned all their stuff.
They're books and different things that were associated with that worship of Diana. They
burned their stuff and maybe you've experienced that as you've started to follow Jesus. I remember
when I did, I remember burning CDs, burning DVDs like Chuck and I can't listen to that anymore.
I'm gonna listen. There's about $2,000 worth of stuff right there that you've purchased that
now it's like, I can't listen to this. What is this garbage? It's like, and there's things that
cost you in this life. It might cost you friends. I remember when I first got saved, man, I cared
about my friends. I wanted to get in their life, share the gospel, tell them and I did and I did
and then pretty soon as I'm doing it, I thought I was being effective. Then all of a sudden I got
sucked back into the world. Proverbs warns of that. When sinners entice you, it says if sinners entice
you, I always tell the kids when I tell them that, scratch that out and put in there when they do
because you know if you're hanging out, Paul says, told the Corinthians that evil company corrupts
good morals and it's not if you're gonna get enticed, it's when. You hang out with the wrong
people hoping to influence their life and you can and you can and you can but there might be a time
where they begin to influence your life and I walked back and I've shared this before, I walked
back in the world for six or eight months. The worst time of my life because I didn't count the
cost, I just walked back in the world and did those things that I did that I was redeemed from. I was
in the garbage. You think those CDs are still here? I still play them a little bit. They're not that bad.
Right? There's a cost and these guys, Joseph, Nicodemus, they made a stand. It cost them. You can
look up their history, what happened in their life. It says that Joseph, that his daughter,
this prominent young woman, was beautiful and they were wealthy, was trying to find grain in a
horse barn, unused grain because they were put out and lost all their wealth. They lost everything
to follow Christ. It's not in the Bible. It's history. You can search it. Look it up. It's gonna
cost you, but it's okay. What you gain is far more valuable in Christ, the future, eternally.
So next week, read ahead, Luke chapter 24, we're gonna talk about lost hope and regained hope.
We're gonna talk about the ladies and Peter and the disciples, how they're looking for a dead Jesus.
We're gonna talk about the guys on the road to Emmaus who had lost hope and what does Jesus do?
He doesn't show them his scars or perform a miracle or produce bread or walk on water. He
opens the Scriptures. How important the Word of God is. We're gonna look at that next week. How
important the Bible is. He opens the Word of God. Exactly. These unnamed, these guys you don't even
know. Cleopas and the other guys not even named, just regular people who lose hope. We're gonna
look at that next week. So Lord, we thank you God for your love, for the value of your life, Lord.
The cost that you paid and the very little, especially in this country that we pay, Lord,
to be your disciples, God. We want to follow you, Lord. We want our lives to count, to matter. We
want to one day stand before you and hear, well done, good, and faithful servant. We want to be
servants, Lord. We want to serve you, love you, follow you, and see our lives make a difference.
So challenge us. Thank you for the challenge in your word, Lord, but challenge us personally, God.
You oftentimes pose questions to people that you know the answer, but it causes us to think, Lord.
I pray we'd all think back of what it's really cost us to follow you. And are we at a turning
point in our life, something that we're being challenged, or we have to make a decision, get
both feet on one side or the other, Lord of defense. So we give you our lives, Lord. We love you, Jesus, in your name.