Counting the Cost

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Luke 14:28-30

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sits not down first, and counts the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?…

I. TRUE RELIGION IS COSTLY. A poor man is suddenly made a prince; it will cost him the giving up of his former manners, and will involve him in new duties and cares. A man is set on the road to heaven as a pilgrim: does he pay anything to enter by the wicket-gate? I trow not: free grace admits him to the sacred way. But when that man is put on the road to heaven it will cost him something. It will cost him earnestness to knock at the wicket-gate, and sweat wherewith to climb the Hill Difficulty; it will cost him tears to find his roll again when he has lost it in the arbour of ease; it will cost him great care in going down the Valley of Humiliation; it will cost him resistance unto blood when he stands foot to foot with Apollyon in conflict. What, then, is the expense?

1. If yea would be Christ's, and have His salvation, you must love Him beyond every other person in this world.

2. Self must be hated. I must mortify the flesh with its affections and lusts, denying myself anything and everything which would grieve the Saviour, or would prevent my realizing perfect conformity to Him.

3. If we would follow the Saviour, we must bear our cross. He who has the smile of the ungodly, must look for the frown of God.

4. We must follow Christ, i.e., act as He acted.

5. Unreserved surrender of all to Jesus. If you possess a farthing that is your own and not your master's, Christ is not your master.

II. WISDOM SUGGESTS THAT WE SHOULD COUNT THE COST.

1. If you do not count the cost, you will not be able to carry out your resolves. It is a great building, a great war. Faith and repentance are a life-work.

2. To fail in this great enterprise will involve terrible defeat. Half-hearted Christians, half-hearted religious men, may not be scoffed at in the public streets to their faces, but they are common butts of ridicule behind their backs. False professors are universally despised. Oh! if you must be lost, be lost as anything but hypocrites.

III. COST WHATEVER IT MAY, TRUE RELIGION IS WORTH THE COST.

1. The present blessings of true religion are worth all the cost.

2. What recompense comes for all cost in the consolation afforded by true godliness in the article of death?

3. Christ asks you to give up nothing that will injure you.

4. Christ does not ask you to do anything that He has not done Himself.

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