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Well, last week we were in Luke chapter 14 as well. We were looking at the cost of discipleship. We looked at what I believe to be one of the most controversial statements of Jesus, where Jesus said, if anyone comes to me and doesn't hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers, then he cannot me be my disciple. And so if you missed that last week, you can check it out on the podcast. You can check it out on our YouTube channel. The cost of discipleship, that there can't be anything in our life that we love as much or even equal or more than Christ. And if there is, Jesus says, that's the cost. I have to be the first love in your life. And so we looked at that last week. And today we're going to follow up exactly where Jesus left off. And in our passage today, we're going to see that Jesus now uses two illustrations from everyday life to drive home that point, but in a little bit of a different way. So directly on the heels of saying, if you don't hate everything and everyone in comparison to me, here's what Jesus says to illustrate that. Look down at Luke 14, starting in verse 28. He says, 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, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Second illustration, or what king going to uh going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down and first deliberate 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 a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. So Jesus here gives us two illustrations on the heels of the cost of discipleship is you can't love anything as much as me. And the first illustration, he says, is a man who wants to build a tower. And if you're gonna build a tower on your property, it's probably a good idea to figure out what is the cost of that tower so that I'm actually able to complete it. And then the second illustration is a king who's gonna go to war, and any wise king who goes to war is gonna look at how many men do I have in my army, how many men are in the opposing army? You're gonna count the cost to see if you're actually able to win the war. So the first illustration with the builder makes us ask the question Do you have enough resources to complete the project that you are setting out to accomplish? And the second illustration makes us ask the question, do you have enough strength to resist a greater power? Now, I'm not sure if you've heard sermons on this before or studied it, but the most common interpretation of these parables and these stories is to say that these are stories about the cost of discipleship, because Jesus just told us the cost of discipleship, that you have to hate everything in comparison to him. And the normal narrative, if this is about the cost of discipleship, goes a little something like this. The pastor or preacher would say, you know, if you don't count the cost before you become a disciple of Jesus, if you don't count the cost, then at the end of the day, you might start following Jesus and then end up not following Jesus, and then people are gonna mock the Christian faith. And so the common way that people talk about this is you want to count the cost before you follow Jesus. You don't want to just jump right in and not know what you're getting yourself into, because then if you actually end up walking away, then it might deter other people from following Jesus as well. And so you don't want to follow Jesus unless you really know you're gonna be able to follow him to the end. That's a common way that people look at this passage. Now, I don't disagree that discipleship is costly. However, the problem with that interpretation is that if counting the cost of following Jesus is something that we do at the beginning of our discipleship journey, my question is, how are we to exactly know what that cost would be? For example, I remember when I gave my life to Jesus at a vacation Bible school when I was six years old. And as a six-year-old, I had no idea what that would cost me later in life. I'm only 38 years old right now, and I still don't know what the cost of following Jesus is fully gonna be. I don't know what future trials or tribulations or difficulties or fire I might go through. And so I'm still following Jesus today, and I don't even know what the cost in the future is gonna be. Likewise, I've I've actually never met a single believer who knew exactly what the cost would be at the moment that they started following Jesus. Like for each one of you in this room who has made a decision, I'm following Jesus, you didn't know what was coming ahead. You didn't know exactly what the cost would be. And so, again, in this more common counting the cost of being a disciple interpretation, normally the believer would be viewed as somebody who's counting the cost of building a tower ahead of time. And at the end of your faith journey, hopefully the tower's complete. That's how people talk about this. You want to keep building the tower of your faith, and at the end of the day, you want to hear God say, Well done, you did it. You counted the cost and your tower is complete. Likewise, if this is about the cost of discipleship, uh, we would be viewed as people who are who are the king about to go to war and we're greatly outnumbered. And yes, we have a foe who's opposing us, and the enemy doesn't want us to get to the end of our faith journey and the enemy's distracting us, but we need to keep fighting the good fight of faith. Count the cost of your discipleship and keep running the race and keep fighting the good fight of faith so that at the end of the Christian life you can prove to be victorious. You counted the cost and you overcame the opposition and made it to the end of your faith journey. Now, again, there's one major problem with that interpretation, and that would be this. Interestingly, in both illustrations, the answer to the question, do I have what it takes to complete the tower? And do I have what it takes to conquer the opposing army, even though I'm greatly outnumbered? The answer to both of those in the text is no. That is the clear answer. The man building the tower very clearly does not have the resources and in the end is mocked. The man who is going to war with a king who has a greater army clearly doesn't have enough to overcome him, and so he surrenders before he ever goes to war. Isn't that interesting? So, again, the the two stories Jesus tells are not stories about people who knew they had what it takes to be a disciple. These are stories about people who discovered they did not have what it takes. The guy did not have what it takes to build the tower, the king did not have what it takes to overcome the opposing army, and so he gave up and surrendered before ever going to war. So the question then for us is okay, so then what do these stories tell us? Well, what is Jesus saying here? What does this mean? Jesus is not saying, hey, don't be like these guys who didn't have what it takes to build the tower. Don't be like the king who just gave up before going to war. He's not saying that. Instead, perhaps Jesus is saying the exact opposite. Perhaps Jesus is saying, you are like these guys. You do not have what it takes to finish the tower that you want to build. You do not have what it takes to overcome the king that you are trying to overthrow. So you need to count the cost, and maybe you should just give up before you ever begin. Now, I know that sounds really strange because, again, we're used to thinking of this passage as the cost of what it takes to be a disciple. However, I believe that this is not a passage about the cost of discipleship. These two stories illustrate for us the cost of not being a disciple. And this is the key to understanding the text. These are two stories that Jesus uses to illustrate the cost of not being a disciple. Jesus is saying, hey, count the cost of building a durable and successful and fulfilling life apart from God. And if you don't have what it takes, which you don't, the tower's never gonna be complete. You're not gonna be able to overthrow the coming kingdom. If you don't have what it takes, then just stop and surrender right now to the king because you're not gonna be able to overthrow him. So again, these two stories illustrate to us the cost and the price that any person and every person will ultimately pay who are not disciples of Christ. And I want to show you that from the text this morning. So let's unpack it together. Again, in the first story, look at it. Again, not from the lens of the cost of discipleship, but the cost of not being a disciple. Verse 28, the first story. Which one of you desiring to build a tower doesn't 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, he's not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him. So in the first story, a man sets out on a project. It says plainly in the text that he wants to build a tower. Now, the tower in the first century context, it may have been some sort of defensive watchtower, or it may have been just some sort of home improvement for his property. And presumably his goal in building this tower was either A to protect his property. That was common to have a defense watchtower if you're wealthy, you gotta guard the so maybe he wants to protect his property, or maybe he just wanted to enhance the value of it. Building on an addition to your house, uh having a little bit more square footage, enhancing your property value. And so again, if if if that's the goal, if that's what this man wants to do, if he doesn't first count the cost, whether I'm gonna protect my property or whether I'm just trying to add on, if he doesn't first count the cost and just says, I'm just gonna do it, I'm just gonna build the tower, if he doesn't first count the cost, at the end of the day, the tower's gonna be incompleted. And at the end of the day, his friends and family are gonna see and ridicule him and go, What are you doing? Why did you waste all that money? You didn't have enough to complete the project. So the big idea is this he wants the tower, but he knows he can't have it. He wants to build the tower, but he knows he does not have the resources to complete it. And here's the big idea. The big idea is this every single person who has ever walked the face of the earth is exactly like the man in this story. I am the man in this story, you are the man in the story, every person who's ever lived is like the man in this story. Just as he wanted to build a tower to enhance his life and to protect what he had, so too, all of our lives are like this. Our life is a great building project, and we want to we want to do something and make something with what we've been given. We all want to succeed, we all want to prosper, we all want to grow our property and grow our net worth and use the resources we had to build a life that is fulfilling and to build a life that is rewarding. However, most people never actually stop to count the cost as to whether the resources they have in this life will be enough to compute to complete this human project. Most people never stop to say, if this is how I live my life, if this is what I'm living for, in the end, will it actually bring true joy? Will it actually bring true fulfillment? Will the tower of my life ever be complete? And the reality is this no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we build up our property or wealth or status, at the end of the day, the lifelong human building project that we all run in and that we all try and accomplish, one day it will all come to nothing. That tower will never be complete. And Jesus makes this abundantly clear in a in a parable he tells just a few chapters earlier in Luke chapter 12. I want you to see this. Luke chapter 12, starting in verse 16, just flip back a few pages in your Bible. It says this. And he told them a parable saying, The land of a rich man produced plentiful. And he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. What Jesus is saying here is ultimately this it is foolish to build your life without counting the cost and considering if this is all my life is about building bigger barns, getting more grain, making more money, getting a bigger house, if that's all your life is about, what is the return on that investment? Is it really worth it? Is it really worth living your life for all of those things and just building up all these great things? The American dream, I have it all. I got the house, I got the dog, I got the family, I got the money, I got it all. And at the end of the day, in the parable, God comes to him and says, You fool. You have all this great stuff, you tried to build the tower, you built bigger barns, you got more grain, you got all, but you fool this night, all that's gone. And whose will they now be? What is the return on that investment? And so the cost of not being a disciple is simply this at the end of your life, whatever tower you work to build up, whatever you tried to secure and protect, whatever you acquire and possess, whatever ample goods you've stored up for yourself so that you might relax and eat and drink and be merry and have a great life and live comfortably, in the end, it will all come to nothing and it will prove to have no eternal benefits. Jesus is inviting us to consider whether what we have in this life is actually able to give us true meaning, true purpose, and true fulfillment. Last week we did see the cost of discipleship. And we saw last week that the cost of discipleship is great. You can't love anything or anyone more than Jesus. To be a disciple, the cost is great, but you know what? To not be a disciple, the cost is actually greater. To not be a disciple of Christ, the cost is so much greater. You build the tower of your life and you cling to everything that you have and you try to hold on to it. You try to hold on to security and find fulfillment, but in the end, Jesus says, You're gonna lose everything. So have you ever stopped and counted the cost? Is it really worth it? Is life worth living apart from God? This is why Jesus said in Matthew 16, verse 25, whoever would save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. So the question is simply this have you counted the cost of not following Jesus? Have you looked at what will the return on that investment be if you just keep building bigger barns and keep getting more grain and keep making better investments in the stock market and keep making the right calls on calci and all the like have you looked at what in the end is that actually gonna do? Have you counted the cost of building the foundation of your life apart from Christ? And have you come to realize that it is fleeting and it is futile? When your life is over and when my life is over, there is a day that each one of us will stand before God and we will give an account for our lives. And I'm here to tell you today God will not be impressed by the square footage of the home that you paid off. God will not be uh impressed by the lease you took out on the Tesla that you probably can't afford, anyways. He will not be impressed by the cash and your savings account. He will not be impressed by the return on your stock market investments. He will not be impressed by the degree that you got from the Ivy League school. He will not be impressed by your LinkedIn profile or how many followers you have on your social media platforms. None of those will matter a single ounce. All of those towers, those are all towers that we try to build up and we find security and we find value, we find purpose in them. All those towers, just like the tower of Babel, are one day gonna come crashing down. They will come to absolutely nothing. And so Jesus today invites us to stop and to count the cost of building that type of life, of continuing to build our tower and what we think is gonna fulfill us. He's inviting us to count the cost of building the tower of our life on anything other than Him. And so my question for you is simply this What tower are you building? We're all doing it. What is the tower that you are building? What is the thing that you find protection from? What is the thing that enhances your life and you think gives you meaning and value and purpose? And is there anything in your life you are trying to find that in other than Christ? Because in the end we see that you can keep trying to build that tower just like the guy in this parable. And Jesus says, it doesn't work. You don't have enough to do it. That tower will never give you true meaning, that tower will never give you true fulfillment, it will never give you true satisfaction, it will always be incomplete. And so count the cost of not being a disciple, count the cost of building the tower of your life apart from him. That's the first story. Now, in the second story, let's let's look at it again, same principle but a different angle. Look at verse 31. 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 asks for terms of peace. So, in the second illustration, a king is about to go to war, he's planning to go to battle with another king. And so the question we have to ask is, well, why would a king do that? Why does one king go to war with another king? Why today does one country go to war with another country? And the answer is very simple the king goes to battle with another king because he wants sovereignty, he he wants to remain king, and he feels like if I don't go to war and overthrow this other king, my kingdom might be jeopardized. So the the reason anyone goes to war is I want to still be king. I want to rule my kingdom and live my life the way that I want. That is the only reason a king would ever go to war. And so, wanting to remain king of his own kingdom in the story, he's like, I'm gonna do it. Let's let's go to war. But then as he counts the cost, he's like, Okay, I got 10,000 dudes, and that guy's got 20,000. As he counts the cost and realizes I actually don't have enough soldiers, I don't have enough power, I don't have the ability to win the war against this other king. He wisely surrenders by going to the other king while he is a great ways off and makes terms of peace. In doing this, he realizes I'm no longer gonna be king, I'm no longer gonna be in control, I'm no longer gonna have autonomy, I'm not gonna have to submit to this other king, but he realizes it is better to surrender before the war begins than going when he knows he can't win the war, anyways, and just losing all of his men and dying. So the reality is just like in the first story, all people throughout human history are just like this king. We want dominion, we want control over our lives, we want autonomy, we want authority. Ultimately, we don't want anybody to tell us what we have to do. Anyone here love being told what to do? You have to do it. It's like that sucks. None of us want that. We are this king. It's like I want to do my life the way I want. I want to run my family and my finances and my my team the way I want. Every single person, especially in America, we're a very hyper-individualized culture. We are like this king. We want to do what we want to do. And again, there's a movement in our culture that reflects this ideology that we see really growing and spreading at a rapid rate. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. It's called no kings. That's the mantra in our culture. No kings. We don't want a king. And I'm sure you're familiar at least with the movement. The no kings movement says, I will not submit to an authoritarian government, I will not submit to an authoritarian president, I will not submit to authoritarian political agendas and policies. I want to govern myself. Now, again, this movement is predominantly made up of people on the left, but we're all guilty because this same mindset of no kings was very prominent with people on the right when the last president was making mandates and congress. Compromising certain freedoms that a lot of us cling to. So, no kings is actually in reality an idea that both the left and the right view, they just see it through a different lens. And whether you're more left or more right, at the end of the day, I think a lot of us live this way. No kings. A lot of us are saying, I want to be in control of my life. I don't want anybody to tell me what to do or what I have to do. I don't want anybody in authority to be able to make decisions for me. I want to live my life the way that I want to live my life. And a lot of us might be able for a season to actually live in that type of way. A lot of us might for a season be able to resist and stand up against political powers and policies and well, I'm just not gonna do that. Just don't like what this party says or what this party says, and so I'm just gonna do my thing. You can resist certain powers for a certain season. However, I've got news for you. There is another king that is coming one day with an army of hosts that you will not be able to resist. There is a king who is coming, and he will strip away your kingdom, and he will strip away every freedom that you thought you had, and everything that you cling to, your wealth and your resources, and everything that gives you security. There is coming a king who's gonna strip all that away. I don't know if you know, but the end of the book tells us how the story of humanity ends. And this is the way that it ends. I want you to see it for yourself. Revelation chapter 19. Flip there real quick. Look what it says in Revelation chapter 19, starting in verse 11. It says this then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and the one sitting on it is called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and makes war. So someone's coming to make war. Verse 12, his eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the word of God. And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses, and from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So the way the story ends is this there's a king coming with a host of his army and other horses that all the nations of the earth are no match for. No kingdom will be able to stand against this king. My kingdom will not be able to stand against this king. And when he comes, he is gonna judge all the kingdoms of the earth and all the kings who said, I want to stay king. I'm gonna govern myself, I'm gonna rule my life, I don't submit to anyone or anything other than myself. There is a king coming, and there is a day coming which that will not be the reality for anybody anymore. And so the question that this story makes us ask is simply this have you counted the cost of living your life apart from God's kingdom? Have you counted the cost of living for your own kingdom and living under your own authority? Have you counted the cost of living with no king over your life? Have you counted the cost of that? And if so, if you have, you will actually be like the wise king in this story, who when he realized I'm greatly outnumbered, and I'm not gonna be able to overthrow that king who's coming because his army is greater. He wisely went to that king when he was a long ways off and made terms of peace. So again, the cost of not being a disciple, number one, is you're just gonna keep building your tower and it's never gonna be finished. And secondly, the cost of not being a disciple is that there's a coming king, and if you don't surrender to him now while he's a far ways off, you're gonna continue to cling to and protect and preserve your own kingdom, and one day it's gonna be taken away from you. That is the cost of not being a disciple. So this story confronts us with a choice. Will I cling to and will I fight for it and try to preserve my kingdom and my authority and my preferences and my autonomy, or will I make peace with the prince of peace while he is yet a far ways off? And by the way, did you know the terms of peace have already been set? That's the greatest part about this. There's a king coming with a greater kingdom. How do we make peace? The terms of peace have already been set. We don't make the peace deal. We don't say, God, I know you're coming, second coming, here's what I'm gonna do to be at peace with you. No, the terms of peace have already been set. That coming king says he's coming in a robe dipped in blood. That is the terms of peace that Jesus, the coming king, he already paid for it. When he went to the cross and gave his life as we were taking the bread and taking the cup, we were saying, Your body was broken and your blood was poured out. That is the covenant of peace. If you try to make peace with God on your own terms, there is no peace. The only way to peace with this coming king who will overthrow all nations and all kingdoms is through the way of the cross. It is saying, I receive the free gift of salvation. I receive the gift of peace that you made by laying down your life, by being the only king who would lay down his life, not just for his friends and his team, he did that for his enemies. He did that for me, he did that for you. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so that is the terms of peace. It comes only by the way of the cross. And there is coming a day, as the scripture says, that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. So the only question is this have you bowed the knee and have you confessed Jesus is Lord? Have you surrendered to that great king while he is still yet a great ways off? Or will you bow the knee and confess him as Lord when he draws near with his army of hosts, when your kingdom is stripped away from you at the return of Christ? Who is the king of your life? Are you king of your life? Is your political party king of your life? Is the people who follow you on social media or they see you as the king? Like, who's the king of your life? And what is the kingdom that you are living for? And my ultimate question is this again, have you counted the cost of living with no king? Have you counted the cost of trying to preserve and protect your kingdom, your preferences, your authority? Or have you said, man, if that's how the story ends, I want to be at peace with that king before he comes. And you can do that today. If you haven't done that today, you can be at peace with God today by trusting in the finished work of Jesus. The terms of peace have already been set. Would you today be at peace with God? Would you today know beyond the shadow of a doubt that when the king comes with his army, he's coming not because he wants to make war, he showed what he wants, he wants peace with you. But for any and all who choose to continue to live their own king for their own kingdoms, those will one day be overthrowed. And God's heart and desire for us is that we would be at peace with God and that he would be the king of our lives. Amen. So the story ends, simply put, Jesus recaps it here in verse 33. I close with this. This is what he says. So therefore, in light of the guy who tries to build his own tower and it doesn't work, the king who knows he's gonna be overtaken, so he wisely surrenders. Therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. To be a disciple of Jesus, what he's saying here is this you have to stop building your tower. Count the cost. Stop building the tower and the foundation of your life apart from Christ. To be a disciple of Jesus, you have to stop preserving and protecting your kingdom because one day that's going to be stripped away from you nonetheless. And so this is what Jesus invites us into today. And that's my prayer for each one of us today that we would count the cost of not being a disciple. And that as you look at what will be the end result of that, that today you would make the decision to surrender everything, to lay down your tower that you're building, to lay down your kingdom that you're living for, and that you would surrender it all under the authority and the lordship of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for these two stories that we see that illustrate what life with you, what would life, what life apart from you looks like. The cost of not being a disciple, continuing to try to build the tower of our life and enhance our lives and be successful and get bigger barns and have more money. And while the world says that's the purpose, and just keep doing that and keep running on that hamster wheel. God, we know that at the end of the day, the tower will never be complete. So I pray today, God, if there's anybody here who's never, who's never thought about what the end result of that is, who's never counted the cost of not being in relationship with you, that today they would stop building the tower. And God, for the king in the story, like all of us, we want that. We acknowledge that. We want autonomy, we want to rule, we we want to do what we want to do. But God, help us to see again in the end, the day is coming when you're coming and you are the king of kings and you are the Lord of Lords. And so today, God, again, we simply surrender our kingdoms to you. We today, God, just invite you as the one true king, the king of kings and lord of lords, we just say, God, would you rule and reign in my heart again? Even if I've surrendered my heart and life to you, God, I know there's the the my heart is sneaky. My heart has ways of deceiving me, and I suddenly start building my own kingdom again. And so today, God, if there's areas in our life that we're just living for ourselves, that we're living apart from your rule and your authority in our lives, God, we just say, God, thank you that we can have peace with you again. Thank you for setting the terms of peace. Thank you that by the cross today we can come to the cross again today and say, God, I'm laying it all down again. I'm laying down my tower, I'm laying down my kingdom. And God, would you be Lord and ruler of everything in our life? So for each person here, God, if there are areas in their life, Holy Spirit, that you're revealing where they're building their own tower apart from you, where they're living for their own kingdom apart from you today again. We just want to come back to peace with you by the way of the cross, come back to peace with you by the blood which you shed to reconcile us and to redeem us. And so for each person here, God, I pray continue to do that work in our heart. And even this week, as we go about our lives, God, would we daily count the cost of what it is not only to follow you, but the cost of not following you? And when we daily make that decision, God, you're king of my heart, not just the moment I raised my hand or got baptized or invited you in, but every day, every moment of every day, would you be Lord of all? And we pray this all in Jesus' name. Everyone said, Amen.