The Cost of Discipleship - Part 1

Welcome to Compromised Radio Ministry, Michael Lee Ebenroth here, Abneroth. Thanks for tuning in on your radio dial, which you don't have radios anymore. You don't have a dial anymore. Although it may be coming back, you know, people have turntables and amplifiers and tuners and albums, 45s.

I've saved some old 45s. I wish I would have saved all of my records, minus the ones that were sinful, but I thought that nature obliterated grace. So when I got saved, I got rid of everything. You can write me, Mike at NoCompromisedRadio .com, or if you feel like giving, you can go to the Patreon account, No Compromised Patreon, and give.

I think I said before that when you do a discernment ministry, we were raking in the dough. Talk about Jesus. Not so much. Drinking some bad coffee today. It got pretty bad. I think it says it's Sumatra, but, man, it's bad.

Sin, Frustration, and God's Providence

Because Kehrig, Kehrig. It's Kehrig. Kehr, Kehr. I'm from Nebraska, remember? Kehrig. I'm just back from Nebraska, and I've been convicted because I've been studying the book Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges.

If you haven't read that book, you ought to read that book. Helpful on what is sin, identifying sin, calling sin, sin, not boo-boos, messy, illness, syndromes, diseases, and then what to do about sin, right?

And how the Lord can help us when it comes to sin. I just looked at my phone. Luke is calling, but I got to just do this first. So, anyway, I looked at the chapters on contentment, thankfulness, anxiety, kind of sinful frustration, and then I'm flying back from Omaha.

I had a great conference, as you heard about a couple of days ago, and my flight's two hours late, so I beg, borrow, and steal to get on the other flight instead of through St. Louis, the late flight through Chicago, Midway, which probably was a dumb idea.

That flight's late. Both flights get in super late at the same time. Matter of fact, the baggage was coming out of the same carousel, number eight at Logan, Boston, for both the St. Louis flight and the flight from Chicago, so it wouldn't have mattered.

And then I get on the... That was 11 o 'clock at night. I get on the shuttle to the parking lot that's a half hour away. It's a discount parking lot that has a shuttle, and so then I get there at probably midnight, and then the car doesn't start.

I do have one of those battery backup things in the car, so I put that on, jumped it. It did start. I was just going to take an Uber home. Why bother and wait for AAA? And then I get home at 1 a .m., and my key doesn't work to the door.

I spit on it. I wiggle it. I fiddle around with it, and I could use the garage door opener. There's a code there, but my wife was sleeping, and the garage is above or is underneath the bedroom, so I just went to the shed.

There's a spare key in the shed, and I got that. I guess now you all know where my spare key is. Oh, well. There you have it. So, I'm thinking about frustration and just like, oh, but the Bridges book is so good because it talks about sovereignty.

It talks about providential working. How do we respond to some of these things? It's God's universe. It's his timetable, and it's just really been good. The chapter on ungodliness, thinking about just pagan gross sins is the way I would think about it normally, but Bridges brings out a good point about ungodliness and just not thinking about the Lord throughout the day.

He's just kind of in the peripheral vision, and you go about your whole day not talking to God, not thinking about God, and what do you do to try to combat that? Excellent book. Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins.

The Cost of Discipleship in Luke 14

I had read it years ago, but I'm getting much more out of it this time. Today, the cost of discipleship, another antinomian message. What are people thinking? It's like if I'm not complete lordship salvation, quote unquote, then I'm lawless.

That's the last thing. I mean, that is just a canard. That's just a false statement. And if you want to pull up my articles from Lordship to Law Gospel, you can at the Heidelblog, heidelblog .net, I believe.

Here's what Jesus said in Luke 14. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, refrain number one, he cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, refrain number two, cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?

Otherwise, when he had laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him. They laugh at him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Hardy har har. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10 ,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20 ,000.

And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and ask for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, refrain number three, cannot be my disciple.

Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

The refrain. Solemn words from our Lord Jesus cannot be my disciple, cannot be my disciple, cannot be my disciple. Are you his disciple? Are you his disciple? There's a Frenchman who said these words about Jesus, quote, trampling underfoot everything that is human, blood and love and country, despising the healthy limits of man's nature, abolishing all natural ties, criticizing Jesus for saying these things.

Today on the show, Jesus and the cost of discipleship, the cost of being Jesus's disciple, Luke 14, 25 to 35. I'm sure I'm not going to get through everything today, but I'm going to be preaching this very, very soon, like in two days.

And I just wanted to talk about it now on the radio show. Now, the context we've been seeing is in Luke 14, where there's this great banquet and people don't have to pay to go to the banquet. They can be down and outers.

They can be crippled. They can be blind. They can be poor. They can be lame. And they're invited to this great banquet. It is free grace. You can just come to this banquet. You've been invited. Please come, compel these people to come in.

In those days, if you were invited to such a thing and you knew you were a lower level and you were blue collar, you were poor, you had some defect, hey, come to this great banquet at the king's house.

Come to the wedding of the king's son. Those kinds of things, you would say, you got the wrong person. And that would go on for a long time. And that's why the text says, compel them to come in. Don't let them say, no, hey, I'm too unworthy.

And you get the spiritual picture, do you not? I'm too sinful to come to the Lord Jesus. My sins are too bad. My sins can't be covered by Calvary. The blood of the lamb can't wash away my sins. And of course our sins are heinous and I've done heinous things.

Sadly, shameful things to bring shame on my life and others and mental issues that I have to deal with the rest of my life in terms of remembering things. And so there's this great banquet and people say, I'm too bad to come.

But remember, there's others who said, I'm too busy to come. I've got a wife. I've got yoke of oxen. I've got land and I don't want to come, but I'm not going to do it. Right? I value other things more.

So then Jesus tells his disciples, this is what it's going to take. This is what it's going to take to get in. Or is this what it's going to take once you're in? Very, very interesting. We're going to talk about that today.

Free Grace, Faith Alone, and Sanctification

Is there anything in your life that takes higher priority than God? That's going to be the issue at hand. I mean, for the people that said, no, it's not sinful to have a wife. It's not sinful to have five yoke of oxen.

It's not sinful to have a field, but it is sinful when those come first. So come to the banquet. It's free. It's by grace. Receive the invitation by faith to be born again, to be forgiven, to be redeemed by the risen savior.

But what happens after you come to the banquet? There are no conditions to come to banquet. Please come, compel them to come in. But what happens after? And what we have to get right with this, and I'm going to be repeating it over and over and over and over.

We do not want to forget you're saved by faith alone, through faith alone, but that faith won't be alone. Two categories, justification, that is standing before God, judicially. Sanctification, that is living the Christian life, family arena, not courtroom.

Christ for pardon, Christ for power. Of course, one follows the other. It has to. If God justifies you, He begins to sanctify you and will glorify you. But there are different categories. Faith is not faithfulness.

You're faithful in the category of sanctification. You believe you have faith in the category of justification. This passage is not. You must first hate your mother. You must first hate your life. You must deny yourself.

You must count the cost. You must carry the cross in order to come to Christ. If that were true, no one's a Christian. Because if you have to do anything first, it has to be with perfect motives and it has to be with perfect obedience, perfect righteousness.

And Christ comes to save sinners. Christ died for the ungodly, Romans 4, 5. And so this is not preparationism. This is not do this first in order to be saved. This is not conditions to have Christ. If you have Christ, this is what your life looks like.

This is what your life should look like. This is what you should strive toward. These are God's standards for you after you've come to Christ. Sola fide is true. Of course, all the Bible is written by God the Spirit.

And you can study that and you'll realize that you stand before God justified by faith alone. Because all Christ's work and we receive his work with a non-meritorious instrument called faith. Jesus said in Luke 5, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Luke 7, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith that the centurion had. The sinful woman, Jesus said, your faith has saved you, go in peace. Luke 8, daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace.

The lady that he healed from the bleeding. To Jairus later in chapter 8, do not fear, only believe and she will be well. Peter confessing that Jesus is the Christ of God, this faith focusing on Jesus.

And in Luke 12, fear not little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom grace free. You don't clean yourself up and then get Jesus. You don't stop sinning and then come to Jesus.

You come to Jesus by faith and then God helps you to say no to sin and yes to righteousness. He gives you a new heart and that heart begins to obey. Repentance is the fruit of faith. Before faith, here we have a free offer and you receive that free offer by faith alone.

After you believe, the spirit of God produces in you the things that Jesus now is talking about. You don't pay to get into the banquet, but if you come to the banquet, you come to Christ as Lord. That's the way we would talk about it.

You come to the banquet, it's been prepared, all the spiritual needy are welcome. You show up and then what? Then you're going to start doing exactly what Jesus says. Faith without works is dead. That's the category of sanctification.

Saved by grace created for good works. Pay this to get in? No. But once you're in, what does grace create? In God's people. So, Ralph Davis, Dale Davis, well, last name Davis, commentator Davis. Why don't I remember this?

Ralph Dale Davis, Dale Ralph. That's Ralph Dale, I think. Yeah. He said, when it comes to this section, he said, it's not really about discipleship and the cost of discipleship. Not mainly. It is, but what's the thing behind the thing?

Jesus' Divine Authority and the Demand for Ultimate Loyalty

Well, we have Jesus the prophet and it is Jesus saying these things about him. And what does that tell you? Oops, sorry. Davis said, who does he think he is? He is saying that he must have the soul and supreme place of affection in your life.

What sheer audacity. Don't you see it? What is Jesus assuming in what he says? It is a blatant claim to deity. No one but deity has the right to demand such ultimate loyalty from us. And Jesus does. Wow.

That's really it. Once you get that, you're like, I see it. And then Davis goes on to say, if you realize Jesus is God and Jesus has saved you and Jesus is the creator, you're the creature, whatever else it said about discipleship, you're like, okay, I accept it.

You could tell me I'm inferior to other people. You could tell me that, I don't know, women are greater than men. You could tell me anything in the world. You could say, you know, we aren't equal, men and women.

I don't care. Whatever you tell me, I'm like, hey, you're the boss. You're God. You're Adonai. You're the Lord. You're God. And I'll just accept whatever you say. If I'm to hate mother, brother, sister, okay, whatever.

I mean, is there anything that he would say that you would go, no, I don't really think that's the way things roll around here. Here Jesus, he's saying he's God and he demands worship. He demands loyalty.

He demands obedience. He demands allegiance. He demands surrender. He demands all these things as fruit of faith, the 10 commandments, Exodus 20. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord, your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

And what's the next verse, which is the first commandment. What is the first commandment? Do you even know what the first commandment is? When I was kind of hyper dispensational or very dispensational, I thought, well, I don't even probably need to memorize the 10 commandments because that's for Israel.

And, you know, I'm under the law of Christ now in the new Testament. That was dumb. I'm not blaming anybody. I've just said when I was in seminary, I didn't say seminary taught me that. Plus I've been to three seminaries.

There you go. Exodus 20, verse three, first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. That's it. Jesus is saying, I'm God. He could say, I'm the father of one. He could say all kinds of things.

He's saying, I'm God. And you should have no other gods before me. Exclusive, covenant, obedience, loyalty, surrender, worship. If there's two gods, well, 50, 50 worship, 75, 25, depending on the day, 63, 66%.

The First Commandment and the Worship of God Alone

If there's only one God, he gets it all. He made us, he owns us. And now we're redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Exodus 22, whoever sacrifices any other God, other than the Lord alone shall be devoted to destruction.

Exodus 23, pay attention to all that I've said to you and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips. Exodus 23 goes on. You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.

You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. No other gods before me, God said. Some could say no other gods in my presence, no other gods that rank equal to me. ESV study Bible, no other gods in competition with me in my presence.

And I think there's a good note in the ESV study Bible. In view of the creation account, God is the one who made everything, no other gods. In view of the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, there are fake gods.

Who's a greater God? God is, think of the Red Sea, et cetera. Worshiping God alone. It says in the ESV study Bible, in view of the persistent call to worship Yahweh alone. Deuteronomy 6, it is the Lord, your God, you shall fear him.

You shall serve. And by his name, you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods. The gods of the peoples who are around you for the Lord, your God in your midst is a jealous God. Lest the anger of the Lord, your God be kindled against you.

And he destroy you from the face of the earth. Deuteronomy 4, that you might know the Lord is God. There is none other besides him. Deuteronomy 4 goes on to say, no, therefore today and lay it to your heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and the earth beneath.

There is no other. Psalm 86, you alone are God. Isaiah 44, I am the first and the last. Besides me, there is no God. Two verses later, is there a God beside me? There is no rock. I know not any. That doesn't seem right.

There is no rock. I'm looking that up right now while we're talking. My name is Mike Cavendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. I haven't here in my notes, but sometimes if you cut and paste things, maybe that might be wrong.

So let's just see to make sure we do this right, because we want to be precise, right? We want to do the right thing. Isaiah 44, verse eight. Oh, look at this. And NAS, you're my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?

Here it says, or is there any other rock? I know of none. There is no rock. I know not any. Is that the ESV? I have to look that up now in my ESV Bible. I've got my special literal Bible. I've got my ESV Bible.

I've got my who knows what Bible. That is Isaiah. See how we're double checking? This is a little lesson here. Make sure you know what you're talking about before you talk. Isaiah 44, verse eight. It says, is there a God beside me?

There is no rock. I know not any. What in the world? I think I like NAS better. Or is there any other rock? Is there any other rock? Isaiah 45. I am the Lord. There is no other. Besides me, there is no God.

I am the Lord and there is no other. I am the Lord and there is no other. Isaiah 45, verse five, verse six, and verse 18. And even if I went to the New Testament, first Corinthians eight, yet for us, there is one God, the father from whom are all things.

And for whom we exist, the one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist. So the point is, the point in what I'm saying is this to quote Romans eight, one, I mean, Hebrews eight, one.

I like Romans eight, one, two, no condemnation for those in Christ. Now, therefore, Jesus is God. So before we get into all this, the, you know, faith alone, and that faith won't be alone and the cost of discipleship.

This is God talking. This is God commanding allegiance to you. If you're listening to me, I'm listening to my own self. Jesus is God. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Thomas knew it, my Lord and my what? God.

Oh no, I'm not, I'm not God. You better not worship me. Thomas is God. Make sure you worship the father. Jesus didn't say that. He said, truly I say to you before Abraham was, I am. Paul knew it for in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

Paul knew that all things were created by Jesus visible and invisible on heaven, in heaven and on earth. The father knows it because of the son, the father says in Hebrews one, your throne, Oh God is forever and ever.

We are waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ, our God, our great God, Jesus Christ. I and the father are one. This, his, his detractors knew you're trying to make yourself God.

He is God. His name is Emmanuel. The virgin conceived, it means God with us. He's God overall, Romans nine. And you honor the father, like you honor the son and you honor the father as God, because you know that the son is God and you give him honor.

Costly Discipleship as the Fruit of Faith

No other gods before me. That's what Jesus is saying. You're having no other gods before me. Exodus, I've rescued out of you out of Egypt. Luke 14, I've rescued you out of the sin pit, dear Christian.

Therefore, top allegiance, the faith that God gives you in the category of sanctification is never alone. It produces a life of costly discipleship. It produces a life of costly discipleship. Did you get that?

It produces a life of costly discipleship. When Jesus is the Lord of everything, you attend the banquet by faith, grace, and you come to the banquet and you come to Jesus as Lord. Davis said, no one but deity has the right to demand such loyalty from us, ultimate loyalty.

And if you're an unbeliever, he made you and you need to obey him. But the law shows you that you don't. That's why you need him as savior. And for believers, we receive the gospel freely, but following Jesus is costly.

Total allegiance to Jesus, surrender, treasuring, the banquets free to those who can't pay, but discipleship is going to cost you everything. Can you buy salvation? No, you accept salvation. And when you come to faith, you'll surrender yourself to him.

And again, if you have to do all these things that I read earlier at the beginning of the show in order to be a Christian, as Lincoln Duncan said, quote, we're in trouble because every one of us fall short of what Jesus says a disciple is in this passage.

If this passage is about how you become a disciple, we're in trouble. Calvin, we do not therefore conclude that men merit the grace of God by such obedience, but Christ shows what sort of persons his disciples ought to be.

Faith, fruit of faith, root of faith, fruit of faith. What does Jesus require of every disciple since he's God? What does he require? What are the non-negotiables? Well, I'm glad you asked because that's next time.

You're like, my name is Mike Avingroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. I am No Compromise Radio Ministry. Would you pray for me? Pray for me to have some tests next week. And I'd appreciate that prayer.

Would you pray for me that I could have some time devoted to my sanctification, a primer book, a book on God's sanctifying work and how we respond with faith, mortification, and vivification. Super simple book.

Would you pray for me as I think about what do I do next in my life? How many years do I stay here at Bethlehem Bible Church? Do I move to California to help my son? Nothing's going to happen anytime soon, but those are just things in my mind.

I've almost been here 30 years. So, we'll see what happens. So, would you pray? Would you pray that I'd be a follower of the Lord Jesus and that even if I want to stay and if I'm supposed to go, I would.

If I want to go and I'm supposed to stay, that I would. We're going to look at three key requirements of every disciple of Jesus next time. Allegiance, assessment, and abandonment. Those are my three A's for alliteration.

Do you love your family more than you love Jesus? Are you willing to bear the cross and have any suffering for Jesus? Do you realize everything that you have is Jesus's? Do you relinquish everything? He might not take everything, but you're willing to let it all go.

Ralph Davis said, this section is disrupting. And it says, I compare Jesus's pathway in Luke 14 to a tornado. Wow. Tornado. Well, my name is Mike Havenroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. I'm trying to think what else to say.

Don't forget my brother, Pat Abenroth has a new book on the Ascension. You can get it at amazon .com. If you want to get one of my books, probably the book that sold the least that I've written is called The Chosen.

And The Chosen is about unconditional election, an easy intro to election from a perspective that is simple. And if your friends are struggling with election, they could read it. Also, I'm trying to work on that.

Pray for that my wife and I figure out how to write together for this parenting book. I've got a bunch of it done. And of course, I've made so many mistakes, the working premises, common parenting mistakes.

So, we can figure out how to get that done. Again, my name is Mike Havenroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Thanks for listening. Tell your friends to subscribe to the YouTube channel, would you please?