The Cost of God

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Hey, what does it cost to follow Jesus, become a disciple, advance in the kingdom? Well, most people are going to tell you it doesn’t cost anything. That’s a lie. And I’m going to expose it on the next More Faith, More Life podcast.

0:00:12 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

0:00:37 – (Steve Gray): When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more. More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

0:01:11 – (Steve Gray): So if you’re ready to do more, subscribe to More Faith, More Life, and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week. It’s time to be and experience more.

0:01:23 – (Steve Gray): Hello, everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. I’m Steve Gray. This is Kathy Gray, my wife. And we had such a great time last podcast saying things that people have never heard before.

0:01:35 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:01:35 – (Steve Gray): Attacking a scripture that very few people will go after because they just don’t understand it.

0:01:41 – (Kathy Gray): That’s right.

0:01:42 – (Steve Gray): And so I thought maybe this whole passage that we’re taking From Luke, chapter 14, verse, what is it? 25, 26 down to 30. And we’re going to hit those today. Oh, even more than that, 33. But maybe we should back up a little bit.

0:02:00 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah, I think so. Because you brought forth a strong title to it last week and also something that could raise questions for people and that is Jesus telling us to hate people.

0:02:14 – (Steve Gray): Does Jesus teach hate?

0:02:15 – (Kathy Gray): Does he teach hate? Is he a hate teacher?

0:02:18 – (Steve Gray): Well, read. Read that passage. If anyone comes to me and what?

0:02:21 – (Kathy Gray): Okay. If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even their own life, that person cannot be my disciple. So what was he teaching?

0:02:32 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, so as I said, most pastors and leaders shy away from that. Or they water it down. Hate less, love less, and all that stuff. But he did say ha. And we could go back to the Greek and try to. But the point is, there’s something about Father, mother, wife, children, those that is not good for you if you want to be a disciple. So the key to it is understanding to carry your cross and follow me, okay?

0:03:07 – (Steve Gray): Because I’m going to snapshot today. I don’t want to go over the whole thing again. The key is the cross. So the cross gives us the idea that we’re going to die to something. But the key to it is follow me. And when he says, follow me and he says hate, he’s meaning, you have to hate following somebody else. You have to hate listening to somebody else. And yet, who did you grow up around? Father, mother. You got married, you have a wife now you have children, you have brothers and sisters.

0:03:37 – (Steve Gray): And you’re going to go to this collective family. Cause he’s insinuating that you can’t hate him if you never see him. If you live in Kansas City, but your brothers and sisters or brother and family and children are in San Francisco, there’s nothing to hate because you’re not seeing them. And this was the collected family. And you would see these people. You lived together in communities, and other families lived, and that was their little communities.

0:04:06 – (Steve Gray): And so what happens is, then they would hear Jesus teaching, and he’s saying what? I want you to follow me. There’s changes you’re going to have to make. There’s big things you’re going to have to die to. Then they go home and they hear, hey, welcome home. We’re a great family. You know, you’re a great kid. You’re a great girl, You’re a great boy. You know what? You just keep going. Just be a good Jew. In their case, it’d be, not for us, I’m not Jewish. But in their case it’d be just be a good Jewish.

0:04:35 – (Steve Gray): Keep following the Jewish ways, keep going to synagogue, keep going to the temple. The Jews, we don’t have to change anything. You don’t have to change anything. And Jesus is saying, if you don’t, you can’t be my disciple. So he’s not saying to hate them as people. You hate the message and messengers or the message, not the messenger. You hate the message of going at you all the time. You don’t need to change.

0:05:06 – (Steve Gray): Just keep going and it’ll get better. Now, how hard does that land on us today that God’s trying to make. Jesus is trying to make disciples out of us, pick up our cross and follow Him. His teaching, his ways, his lifestyle that he has for us. But we hear that voice, well, first of all, it’s too hard. And then we have people that we surround ourselves with, which our best friend. What do best friends do? In most cases, they don’t tell you the truth.

0:05:35 – (Steve Gray): They say, you’re okay, don’t beat yourself up. As we talked about last week, which is not scriptural, and don’t beat yourself up. You’re okay. Just keep going. I want to encourage you that you’re good and you’re not that bad. And don’t, you know. And people don’t change.

0:05:52 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah, they don’t change. And they go with what we teach and understand those family attitudes or things that have been passed down from generation to generation about. You don’t have to go that far. You don’t have to tithe well. You don’t even have to be nice to everybody. You know, you can be any of those attitudes in a family that are contrary and, you know, that make a family dysfunctional, that are against the kingdom. But that’s really pushed too. That’s very strong.

0:06:21 – (Steve Gray): And it’s in us when we don’t know. It’s in us too. Like, we laugh, like saying, I’ll never be like my mother. And then 30 years old, 35, 40 years old, like, what have I become? That’s why in the book mighty like Gideon, one of the strongest messages is there is when the angel of the Lord tells Gideon, go and deliver, mighty warrior. You’re a mighty warrior. And he says, no, I’m not. You know, I’m weak and everything.

0:06:45 – (Steve Gray): Go and deliver Israel from the Midianites. But he didn’t first. The first thing God told him to do is go tear down your father’s religious altar, the religious roots, because he grew up around, you know, a false God. Your religious roots are in you now. Does God want Gideon to hate his mother and father and brother and go hate him? No, he’s still supposed to honor him. But the message that they put in him of false gods needed to go and he had to hate that message.

0:07:19 – (Steve Gray): And sometimes it’s not about a false God. Some just false teachings, false ideas, false even of who you are or who your parents are or what church. You know, maybe a false idea where church belongs in your life. And it’s just a Sunday morning thing. Well, you got to hate that message because this isn’t everything. So. So anyway, that’s the truth of that. Now we can go on. Let’s go on now somewhere else.

0:07:42 – (Kathy Gray): So the next verse yeah, the next verse. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. You got to first sit down and, you know, count the cost because you could start building and then not have enough to finish it. And then people are going to laugh at you and mock at you and, you know, make fun of your who. If you started to build, then you run out of the ability to count the cost and pay the cost. Then, you know, you become a mockery. People go, wow, you didn’t have enough to finish it, did you?

0:08:14 – (Steve Gray): And so he uses that example because they built towers, and they built towers around their cities for protection. We don’t have a tower here for protection, but they built towers and put people up there to see who’s coming. So when they said, if you’re going to build a tower, which was common, you. You need to make sure you have enough to pay for it, the cost, or else it’ll be half a tower, you know, or it won’t be at all.

0:08:37 – (Steve Gray): And then you’ll be made fun of and ridiculed, as you said. So he uses that example, but the example is there’s a cost to it. And now we want to know, as we said today’s title, what does the kingdom cost? There is a cost to it. And so in my teachings on this, I tried to explain to people the kind of Christianity that most people are getting, okay? I’m not saying it’s not sincere. It could be sincerely wrong.

0:09:07 – (Steve Gray): I’m not saying there aren’t sincere preachers and churches and church folks, all that. Not ridiculing that, but the level and the mental way, the way we process what church, where it goes, where is God placed in my life is not a good message. Because what happens is people decide they want to serve God, or in a desperate situation, they turn and they get saved, or they get born again, they get filled with the spirit and right then with no teaching, of no cost.

0:09:40 – (Steve Gray): Because the teaching in our country, at least and around most of the world is there is no cost. Jesus paid it all. That’s true at the cross. We do believe in that.

0:09:52 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:09:53 – (Steve Gray): But after you start the walk, there is a cost to advancement. There’s a cost to move in and forward with God. Now, if you don’t do that, what happens is you start the tower, you start the walk, and you think, I’m going to do it, I’m going to make it. I’m going to walk with God. Maybe I’ll get a ministry. Maybe I’ll just maybe God will talk to me and it’s going to make my life better and I’m going to be happier. And all the things that may be a process of. What does it mean now that I’m a Christian? What does it mean to my life?

0:10:23 – (Steve Gray): And all the things that you process, okay, but you’re not going to get them if you don’t understand there’s a cost to advancement. And if no one teaches you that there is, first of all, and then how to begin to weigh the cost, then you’re building a tower and you’ll never be able to finish or run the race or become the person that you want to be. And you’ll always feel a sense of loss, emptiness, wondering what’s a thought of what’s missing.

0:11:00 – (Steve Gray): I’m already born again. I’m going to church. I don’t read my Bible enough, but at least I believe in it. I pray occasionally. I try to be a good person. I try to be a good dad, a good mom, a good friend. I try to do a good job. You know, all the things we’re trying to do. Why? What’s missing? Well, what’s missing is becoming a disciple. We’re supposed to become disciples. And what’s missing is. You don’t know that because we say discipleship class. We have a discipleship class, but there’s no cost to it. We’re not teaching cost.

0:11:35 – (Steve Gray): We’re teaching how to be a better. Discipleship is how to be a better. All the men get together and they talk about discipling men to be better men, not to be a disciple because it might cost something to be a better man trying better habits or something. But that’s not the cost Jesus is talking about. Which we’ll get to in a minute. What that cost is the cost of the kingdom in a minute.

0:11:57 – (Kathy Gray): It’s powerful. Really?

0:11:58 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, but we don’t teach it.

0:12:00 – (Kathy Gray): No, we don’t.

0:12:01 – (Steve Gray): You go into it and all you hear is we’re saved by grace, which we are. But we’re not taught what grace is. We’re taught grace is a. What is it, the Monopoly game? Go out, get out of jail free? And that’s not grace. Grace is people who don’t deserve anything get to do everything and get to become something. Get to do something and get to be. Go and do Be. Go and do things. All right, but. So grace is a power, not a blanket that covers us.

0:12:37 – (Steve Gray): So since we don’t know that, then we think, okay, saved by grace means there’s no cost. I can’t say it. I guess I don’t need to say it any better than that?

0:12:46 – (Kathy Gray): Well, you know, a lot of people say, well, I can go ahead and sin in this area. I know it’s against the word of God, and I know God has told me several times, don’t go awry and astray in that area with my word. And then people who understand that grace as a blanket, then they’ll say, well, you know what? His grace is just all encompassing. So I can go ahead and sin on purpose even, and I can say God.

0:13:16 – (Kathy Gray): Then afterwards, God forgive me. And so that’s not discipleship. That’s not training your mind. That’s what taking advantage of God’s grace, which is a power.

0:13:28 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. And I don’t think anybody would ever tell anybody they’re thinking that, but it’s deep into us that, oh, okay, I got a backup plan.

0:13:35 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:13:36 – (Steve Gray): Forgiveness and the grace of God. And by the way, forgiveness and grace are not the same thing. Forgiveness is forgiveness and we have forgiveness. Okay, thank God for it.

0:13:44 – (Kathy Gray): Exactly. Yes, thank God.

0:13:45 – (Steve Gray): But grace is a power to go forward. It’s not the power to look backward. So the church has just messed us all up on it. That’s why, you know, I don’t want to be egotistical about it, but that’s why I want people to listen to this podcast. Because they’re not getting the true gospel and just the details. We’re getting general, but not the details of what makes life work and what makes a disciple or what makes us into what God wants us to be so we can go do and be the things we need to be.

0:14:14 – (Steve Gray): So what’s going to happen to these people if you don’t understand the cost? There’s no cost preached or taught or understood. You’re going to live a life that you never get to finish. The tower of your life, there’s a cost to it. And you can have great hopes and dreams and it’s okay to have those things. But Joseph was the dreamer. Joseph, but he fulfilled the dream. Didn’t just dream a dream. And so we live a half-life, we live a half tower, and we don’t know why we feel.

0:14:51 – (Steve Gray): I don’t know how to describe it because I don’t know how everybody feels, but empty, a loss, something’s missing. Or we do dumb things like, well, maybe if I get another job, another wife. Wife, another husband, another car, another house, another, you know, maybe if I make more money, maybe if I become homeless, people. There’s a reason people become homeless, too, but we don’t need to go there. But there’s a Thought process to it, why they become homeless.

0:15:15 – (Steve Gray): Something’s missing. So when you become homeless, you just forget the tower. You just tear it down and sit on the street. Right. But yeah, and there’s people who believe in God who are homeless, but they weren’t able to because they didn’t understand there’s a cost, but you can afford it. It’s an affordable plan. It’s like somebody brings life insurance and says it’s expensive, but you can afford it. Okay.

0:15:42 – (Steve Gray): Or that cruise is expensive, but you can afford it. Let’s go on to the next one.

0:15:47 – (Kathy Gray): Okay, so talking about a king about to go to war with another king, first he needs to sit down and. And say, do I have enough men to fight this guy who might have more men with him? So do I have more? So you have to use a little bit of diplomacy, really, and send a delegation. He says, if you don’t have enough men to win and ask for terms of peace with your opponent who outnumbers you.

0:16:17 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:16:17 – (Kathy Gray): And so that’s a big.

0:16:18 – (Steve Gray): And that makes sense. Makes sense. If you’re going to wage a war, you better, you know, in their way off, you better see, do you have enough to defeat them? Yeah, I mean, that’s just. Boy.

0:16:28 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah. You don’t want to start a war.

0:16:30 – (Steve Gray): And it’s interesting that Jesus uses those two examples because they understood towers and they understood wars then. But it’s interesting that because our walk with Jesus, there’s warfare to it. I mean, not everything comes natural to us. Right. Just because you have children doesn’t make you a good parent or even understand what a parent does. There’s some warfare. You got to work with yourself. You got to have eyes open. You got to love and care and forgive and all those. You got to kind of become a God figure, you know, like a Jesus person. You know, there’s some changes you need to make.

0:17:08 – (Steve Gray): And so when we enter this, Jesus is saying, not just a natural war, but you’re going to enter warfare. And you need to realize, have you figured in your head how you can become a winner in the kingdom of God? How you can advance, how you can become who you’re supposed to be in the kingdom of God? Not in the future, not in the sweet by and by, but during this life. And there again, when Paul talks about himself, he says, I finished the race.

0:17:40 – (Steve Gray): He won the prize. I finished the race. I ran a good race, I kept the faith. And so he’s basically saying, I built a tower and I finished it. Now I’m ready to go. And they Killed him. I waged a war. And he said it was a good fight. See a lot of people in a fight, but they’re no good. I remember the story. I don’t want to say his last name, but my friend, that when growing up, certain years, his name was Mike.

0:18:06 – (Steve Gray): He was a big guy. He’s twice my size. He could have knocked anybody’s head off. But there were these bullies, and they would see Mike and me coming, and they never bothered me because I wasn’t a prize. And they would just slap him around till his face was red. And they couldn’t knock him down because he was a little too big. But they’d slap him and hit him and punch him and then just leave. And it was a fight, but it wasn’t a good fight.

0:18:34 – (Steve Gray): It was a terrible fight. And so my friend Mike never put up a fight, but he was in a fight. If you saw it, said, look, there’s a fight. Fight, fight, fight, as they say. But it was not a good fight. And Paul said, I fought a good fight. That means he. He was able to win that war. And so what happens is then we as individuals, we do enter into a war for our souls to fail to go back to our old ways, go back to our old roots, and not advance us, but also not advance the kingdom.

0:19:05 – (Steve Gray): This is an advancing kingdom. So we’re supposed to help advance the kingdom. And we’re unable to do it. And it’s going to take. It’s like going to war. There’s a lot of things to war for and fight for, like Paul said. And so now where we are in our present condition, which I mention in the book, if you only knew the present condition of the church, which I hope you’re a part of, the kingdom is part of that church. The church is part of the kingdom is. We are waging a war that we cannot win because we have not count what it costs to win the war.

0:19:39 – (Steve Gray): So we have gone after alternate lifestyles. We’ve gone after Hollywood. We’ve hoped to change so we can clean up the movie industry and we can clean up these. So there’s not these certain lifestyles or in our schools and these teachings, how bad has it gotten? I mean, people are trying to change it now, but how did it get that way? Because the church didn’t count the cost. And the cost was not bashing alternate lifestyles.

0:20:07 – (Steve Gray): The cost was not saying, as I heard many, many sermons, Kathy, and you did, too. Judgment’s going to come to America because of them, because of those people. In los. In San Francisco, they used to say those lifestyles and those people in San Francisco and the way they’re living and what they’re promoting in movies. Judgment’s going to come to America or judgment’s going to come to California. That’s not even relevant.

0:20:32 – (Steve Gray): We didn’t wage the right war. They don’t need to change. I mean, the church already says those people are going to hell anyway. What they supposed to become? Just better alternate lifestyle people? What are we trying to do here? We didn’t wage the right war, and so we lost it. So those styles, they are strong. They control movies, they control tv, they control politics. They’re everywhere. Now. I’m not preaching against them, nor preaching for them.

0:21:06 – (Steve Gray): I’m preaching about the church that did not wage the war they should have. Because we are waging war against principalities and powers and lifestyles, if you want to, and ways that you don’t agree with or you think are ungodly. But we’re waging it by bashing others, but not bashing ourselves. We don’t know. We’re not making it cost us anything. And the cost is dying to ourselves. Waging a war about ourselves becoming the light of the world, not the hammer, the light of the world that’s showing such a beam and such a lifestyle and such a joy that now we change the world and we change people’s minds, Right?

0:21:49 – (Steve Gray): But we didn’t do that. We made it worse. We waged a war that we could not win in our present condition. And we are now waging a war we cannot win in our present condition. So the last part of this scripture says, in the same way, when it’s talking about hate, it talks about towers and it talks about warfare. He says, in the same way, just those examples. So you got to get those examples. Those of you who do not get, give up everything.

0:22:21 – (Steve Gray): Who do you know even trying to do that? You cannot be my disciples. It’s disciples that change the world, not churchgoers, not preachers. Preachers can preach the word to be his disciple, but it’s not a preacher supposed to change the world. It’s not a politician who’s also a reverend that changes the world. It’s that disciple. So we’re not waging the war to become disciples. If we don’t become disciples, we’re going to lose lifestyle, we’re going to lose our priorities. We’re going to. We’re just going to lose. We’re not going to be able to finish this war. We’re waging A war we cannot win in our present condition, spiritual condition.

0:22:59 – (Steve Gray): So what’s. What needs to be done? We need to count the cost. We need preach the cost. And we need lifestyle changes where we go to church. And we’re transformed by the renewing of our mind. New creation is a real thing, not just a metaphorical example. Right. Just not a metaphor for a happier person or a better life. Right. So these are the things that are not being taught. And what happens is then we see more divorces among Christians, more suicides among Christians. And I’m not just saying Christians to point them out or leave everybody else out like they’re not important, but we’re talking about people that should be becoming disciples, are being suicidal. They’re not disciples. They’re suicidal. They’re not disciples. They have bad habits and they’re angry. They’re not disciples.

0:23:51 – (Steve Gray): They have things hidden in them that nobody knows about. Instead of getting free, they hide these things. And you know, the problem today, Kathy, with Christians is everybody’s got something to hide rather than everybody’s been transformed. We’re all hiding things because we know it’s not right. But we’re not counting the cost of if I would, if I would become a disciple and pay the price, die to some things, I could be free of it, then I wouldn’t have to hide anymore. But we’re not counting the cost.

0:24:25 – (Steve Gray): And preachers are not preaching a cost. They’re so, so preaching there’s no cost. I understand grace and I understand how they’re trying, and I understand what Jesus did for us on the cross, and I’m not going to take away from that. But there’s something wrong if we don’t, if we don’t take what Jesus spoke about, discipleship, there’s a cost, and if we don’t pay it, then we’re the losers. I’m the loser, you’re the loser.

0:24:53 – (Steve Gray): We’re not doing it. But the Kingdom of God is a loser because we don’t advance the kingdom. And all those alternate lifestyles that everybody wants to preach to, they’re losers, too, because we’re giving them nothing to walk on and we’re not giving them a rock to stand on. So that’s my speech on this. We’re waging a war we cannot win. We’re trying to build towers that we’re never going to be able to finish.

0:25:18 – (Steve Gray): And we’re listening to people and following people that are telling us, you’re great, just keep going. So, folks, I hope you tell. I don’t know what to say. I hope you’re telling people. Tell people. I’m not saying don’t listen to other people, but just understand this is something that you’re not. Probably. I’ll just say probably. It’s not well preached hardly anywhere you can get my book Mighty Like Gideon, written along with J.D. king and the booklet, If You Only Knew. There’s also other books at https://stevegrayministries.com

0:25:51 – (Steve Gray): But this is strong and it needs to be said. I hope our listeners and our podcast folks and all those, I hope they appreciate it. You don’t have to appreciate me, just appreciate the word and what’s being said and that you got to hear it today, right? What does it cost, you know, to be in the kingdom? Jesus said everything. If you find somebody that’s living that latch onto them and learn.

0:26:21 – (Steve Gray): Because I don’t hardly know anybody that’s willing to give up everything. And I’m trying to end okay, But I should say when they say give up everything, it doesn’t mean become homeless or a monk. It doesn’t mean become poor or give all your groceries and all your utility money to somebody. The everything’s not outward. The giving up everything is inward. It’s giving up what we’re following on the inside, who we’re following on the inside.

0:26:51 – (Steve Gray): And that hasn’t been preached either. So it’s a jewel. I just thought I’d throw in a little diamond at the end. Good stuff, huh? Thank you for listening. Go to https://stevegreyministries.com and learn more. Please tell your friends and do whatever you need to do to start following and subscribing and all the stuff that you’re supposed to do online and get this and let it help move your life forward in the kingdom of God as you live this life on the earth. Till next time, bye bye.