What am I getting at? Several things. First, when we turn to the pages of scripture, we see that the spread of Christianity was not built on all the things that I listed above that Evangelical Western Christianity is built on. Rather, it is built upon sacrifice, loss, and extreme pain and hardship.
Abraham, you want to be a great nation? Leave everything- your home, your city, and your land. Also, sacrifice your son as well.
Paul, God's chosen instrument to reach the Gentiles- shipwrecks, beatings, false accusations, poverty, and something else....oh yeah, prison.
The rest of the apostles? They were all martyred, except John. Stephen in the book of Acts? Stoned.
Time and time again we see that the kingdom of heaven is spread through the blood of the saints.
Second, our forefathers not only believed that they had a message worth preaching, but a Savior worth sacrificing for. Our forefathers understood that if the gospel was going to spread and the church was going to flourish, it wouldn't happen through comfort, affluence, wealth, and worldly success. In fact, these things have a way of drowning out the real message of discipleship- come and die! Come and give up everything to follow Jesus.
Why is sacrifice necessary? Because it is woven into the very fabric of the gospel. As we saw last week, it is founded in Christ, It is also inherent in the call to discipleship. All of the imagery that Jesus gives in Luke 14 is one of sacrifice. It is a sacrifice of all earthly relationship and loyalty to love him supremely. It is a sacrifice of all the things of the world- our rights, prestige, honor, comfort- in order to take up our cross. It is a willingness to give up everything. When we chose to follow, we chose to lose the rights to everything, and Jesus now has ultimate claim on us. That means that whatever and whenever He calls us to go, and sacrifice or obey, the answer is an unreserved "yes." No arguments, no excuses.
The spreading of the kingdom and the building up of the church is costly. Jesus Himself even said, "Truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. but if it dies, it produces a lot of grain." If we keep our lives, we lose it. If we lose our life for the gospel, we gain. If we are going to produce fruit- evangelism, healthy churches, disciples- we have to sacrifice for it. It is a necessity. It will not come any other way. We have tried it the other way, and what have we gotten? Your standing right in the middle of it.
If you are a disciple, you are called to a life of sacrifice so that God may use your dying to produce more fruit in His vineyard. So, it is not about how much of ours we will give, but how much of God's will we hold onto. Since it is all His, it deserves to be relinquished in whatever way He chooses so that He may build His kingdom.
So, my challenge is simple: Come, and take the conditions of discipleship personally.