This talk was given at a June 7, 1974, community meeting at which several people made the covenant. Kevin Ranaghan talked about Luke 14, emphasizing that anyone who comes to Jesus and doesnât put everything else second canât be his disciple. Kevin urged everyone to count the cost and decide to pay it.Â
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
KEVIN: This afternoon, I asked the Lord for a Scripture to read and then to talk about, which would be something for all of us, and something, in maybe a special way, for our brothers and sisters who are going to make the covenant with the People of Praise tonight. And the Lord gave me this really great Scripture. Itâs from the 14th chapter of Luke:
Now, great multitudes accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, âIf 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, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me 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 has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, âThis man began to build and was not able to finish.â
Or what king going to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace. So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.â
Jesus has told us over and over again how much he is our Lord, how much he loves us, how powerful he is, how he dwells in our midst by the power of the Spirit, and gives us everything that we need. We praise him as the completely glorious and victorious Lord. We say that heâs completely light and glory, that in him there is no darkness at all.
We knowâI think we know very much right down to our very rootsâhow complete Jesusâ love for us is and how complete and all-sufficient his giving of himself for us is. But this Scripture, I think, takes a somewhat different point of view, one that doesnât contradict that, but one that speaks very much to us and our basic attitude in following after Jesus, whom we know can do everything for us.
As I read this Scripture, I got the idea of itâsee, the Scripture says, âNow great multitudes accompanied him, and he turned and said to themââand I just saw this huge horde of people following after Jesus. And Jesus has been going around all over the place, teaching. Heâs been proclaiming the Kingdom, heâs been proclaiming the basic gospel, and heâs also been teaching. Heâs been givingâhe has been giving all sorts of wisdom about God and man and how men should live before God.
And great hordes of people are following after him. And theyâre just a lot of people who are really into Jesus. Jesus is the thing theyâre doing. Theyâre following after this great guy where heâs really wise and heâsâhe has this great teaching, and it really turns a lot of people on, and theyâre following along, and you can just kind of see them trooping down the road, and people are scurrying to get up close to hear theâthe latest thing that this great teacher may, you know, drop from his lips and all sorts of people really think that theyâre with Jesus as they scurry after him.
And then he just stops, and he turns aroundâand, just praying about it, I saw Jesus kind of dusty and dirty and sweaty, and heâs been working hard and doingâdoing the mission that the Father sent him for. And heâs kind of tired out, and he just turns right around and faces all these people who are following after him, who are really into him, who say theyâre really with him, and he says, âIf anyone comes to me and doesnât put everything second, or third or fourth or fifth, to coming to me, you canât be my disciple.â
âIf you are really going to follow after me, if youâre going to be my disciple, if youâre going to really continue down the path where I am leading you, if youâre going to go that way, youâd better decide right now to despise everything else that is precious to you: your mother, father, sisters, brothers, even your own life.â
âCount it as nothing in comparison to what I mean to you. If youâre going to be my disciple, youâve got to carry your own cross.â
What an absolutely, thoroughly repugnant, repulsive thing for Jesus to say. But, boy, he made it absolutely clear: âBeing my disciple, following after me, is not a matter of just picking up the neat tidbits of teaching that I give, or going along with this neat crowd of people, or having a great feeling being around me and my friends. But it means picking up your own cross and following after me as I carry my cross before you.â And he says, âStop right where you are and count the cost. See very clearly that to be with me, to be really with me, is to be willing to let everything else go, is to renounce everything else you have or that youâre attached to.â
And clearly, you know, to all of us, thereâs a huge difference between being into something or being attached to someone interesting and exciting and glorious and glamorous, even who does all sorts of good things for us, and really putting him absolutely ahead of everything, as the person to whom weâre totally committed.
In verse 33, he says, after the example of building the tower and counting the cost, or the king who wants to make war andâand counting the cost and figuring out exactly what itâs going to cost him to win, he says, âYour price is thisâthe cost of being my discipleâwhoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.â
And Iâwhen I read this, I really praised the Lord for giving us this Scripture tonight.
Now, the Lord whoâs calling us to follow him is the Lord of Glory. Heâs the Lord of this complete and unsurpassed love. He is the Lord who saves and heals and transforms and liberates and speaks his word to us constantly. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. We know that.
But he is calling forth from usâwho, coming together in this community which he is forming, profess that we really want to be his disciples, that we donât want to be on the fringe of activity with him, but that we really want to follow him completelyâheâs telling us, reminding us, what his terms are. And heâs calling on us all as we commit ourselves to the life that heâs calling us to lead.
And as all of us try to renew in ourselves our commitment to live the life of the People of Praise, as the Lord has taught us it is to be, that we are to do that with this attitude that heâs calling us to: of renouncing everything, but putting him absolutely first.
And he calls us to a path of discipleship that he gives us every indication will be hard. He tells us it will be carrying a cross, that it will be dying, that it will be dying to ourselves, that it will be spending ourselves, that it will be stumbling and falling. But the path of discipleship after himâhe does not tell us in this passage that this is going to be easy. And this doesnât contradict at all his love for us, and his power and his salvation and his miracles.
But he calls upon us to be completely willing, as we renounce everything, to follow him and the plan he has laid out for our life and is revealing for our life in the People of Praise. Heâs really calling usâon us, to spend ourselves completely for him, and to spend ourselves completely for each other, and to put ourselves, and everything else that is precious and important to us, way, way, way down on our list of priorities. But for it to be our first priority, to follow him and to live the life that he has called us to in the hard service, in the working out of personal relationships, in the laying down of our time and our money and our comfort and our energy and everything else, in order to really be his disciple. I think Jesus wants to make that clear to us tonight.
And the Jesus whoâs making us clear to that tonight [sic] is the same Jesus who told us in the prophetic words that Bob had a little while ago, and in all the prophecies we had Wednesday night, just how fantastically he loves us, and is caring for us, and is taking us where we are, and meeting our needs, and forming us, and molding us, building us up. I really praise God that Jesus tonight is showing us what it costs to be his disciple.
And I believe that at the same time heâs showing us, heâs giving us his Spirit and prompting us inside to sit down, to count the cost, and to decide to pay it.
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