D17 P15: If you hahve to ahsk...

When the menu has food I can't pronounce and doesn't list the price of anything, I know I'm in the wrong restaurant. I won't like the food any better than a Gates burnt ends sandwich, and I won't be able to pay for it. "If you hahve to ahsk, you cahn't afforhd it."

The Gospel is offered to us freely. There is no price tag on it that tells us how much we must pay in order to acquire it. But it is a gross misunderstanding of the Gospel to then conclude that the Gospel doesn't cost us anything. A lack of a price tag doesn't mean it doesn't have a price. The lack of a price tag merely says, "You can't afford it."

"Free" doesn't mean "without personal cost."

"Free" means that the price to bring you into the Kingdom of God is so large that it must be given to you as a gift by the only one who can actually afford it. But following Christ still costs you everything. Following Christ means forsaking all other gods, giving up living for yourself, surrendering your security in mere things, and being willing to let go of everything, even of your own life, if that's what it takes to follow Christ more completely.

Furthermore, "free" doesn't mean "of little value."

The value is determined not by what you would pay to acquire (which you can't afford any way). Rather, the value is determined by the price that Jesus paid to offer it to you freely - which was His life, His unbroken relationship with the Father, and the penalty of sin. If the Gospel didn't cost anyone anything in any way, how valuable would it be? A free gift of gold is more precious than a free gift of tissue paper - it's still free, but the value is determined by the cost paid by the giver.

The 15th entry in our series of the 17 truths of discipleship ("D17") is this:

Discipleship is costly (Luke 9:57-62; 14:26-35; Matt 10:37-39).

It is offered to us freely (we can't pay for it, let alone afford it). But it cost Jesus the greatest costs ever paid, and receiving that gift means it costs us every reliance on worldly ways and every attempt to find in things that which can only be fully found in God through Christ.

How can the Gospel cost us nothing and yet cost us everything? No analogy is perfect, but consider the difference between purchasing something and ridding yourself of valueless things in order to make room for what's truly valuable. Purchasing means I give an equivalently valuable thing in order to get something in return - I deserve the thing because I paid its worth. "Making room" is ridding yourself of all things that occupy the spaces designed to be filled uniquely by God.

Those spaces are not confined to Sunday mornings or to mere behaviors. Rather, they are the very spaces of what it means to be human: my sense of personal identity, the satisfaction of my soul, my security, the purpose I live for, the ways I choose to respond to challenges and stresses - everything about being human. The Gospel costs us every false way of filling those spaces so that they can be filled by God alone.

The Gospel costs us everything related to being human so that we can finally be truly human.

To disciple someone else will also cost you - time, effort, money, and emotional energy. You will enter into the messiness of someone else's imperfect life, and you will give up the facade covering the messiness of your own. It will cost you tears. It will create some heartbreak. You will suffer some disappointment. And it's worth every bit of it!

And we if share the Gospel without also telling people that it will cost them everything, we sell the Gospel short and lie about its true nature. People must know that the Gospel is free but is also worth giving up everything. Jesus did not shy away from telling others what following Him would cost:

Luke 9:57 As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.”

58 And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

59 And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.”

60 But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”

61 Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.”

62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Luke 14:26 “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, he cannot be My disciple.

27 “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

28 “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?

29 “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,

30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

31 “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?

32 “Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

34 “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?

35 “It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Matthew 10:37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.

38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

39 “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”