Question:
What does it cost you to follow Jesus?
Lesson: To follow Jesus you must pay a significant price.
To Follow Jesus:
1. It’s Not Going to be Convenient,57-8
2. It’s God’s Kingdom First, 59-60
3. It’s No Turning Back, 61-2
M. Luther: “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
FF Bruce: "The burial pf dead strangers
was considered as a highly meritorious work of godliness in Judaism; how much more the burial of one’s own ... relatives. Attendance to the duty of burying one’s parents was held to be implied in the 5th commandment: 'Honor your father and mother.' It took precedence over the most solemn religious obligations. But so important in Jesus’s eyes was the business of following him and promoting the kingdom of God that it took precedence even over the burial of the dead.”
Calvin T. Partain: "In the cotton farming country around Lamesa, Texas, where I grew up, the land was flat and the cotton rows often where as straight as an arrow. I asked a farmer how he made the rows so straight. He said, "When I plow a new row I fix my eyes on an object at the far end of the field and never look back. You can't plow [straight] looking back."
CONCLUSION: The Christian life is not easy. There’s a significant price to be paid.
We are not told whether any of these three people ultimately followed Christ. We are not told whether any of them was willing to pay the price.
We can only speak for ourselves.