Audio of the sermon is here:

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Jesus talks about counting “the cost.” He says that if you’re going to build a house, you should sit down first and add up the cost of the building, and make sure you can not only start building, but finish building. Otherwise, if you don’t have enough to finish, people are going to mock and ridicule you for starting something you were not able to finish.

            I don’t think we’re very good at counting the cost of things, usually. We have credit cards. We can buy now and pay later. I’ve done it probably too many times. We can get what we want right now, and we can put off the payment for it. We can push off the cost of something to some point in the future, and deal with it then. We do it all the time with all sorts of things.

            Large crowds are following Jesus, and everything Jesus says to these crowds is enough to give any church growth guru an aneurysm. I mean, imagine this: you are in this large crowd, following Jesus. Maybe you’ve heard some things He’s said; maybe you’ve heard about what He’s done. But you’re there in that crowd, and He turns and looks at you, at the crowd, and He says: if you do not hate your mother and father, your wife and children, your brothers and sisters, you are not able to be My disciple. If you do not take up your cross and follow after Me, you are not able to be My disciple. If you do not renounce and disregard everything you have, you are not able to be My disciple. How’s that for an intro to Jesus, or Christianity?

            What might it cost you? Will you be able to finish what you’ve started? Have you counted up, calculated, figured out, added up what being a Christian will cost you? How many of you were confirmed, either in eighth grade, which was a common practice in the Missouri Synod, or as an adult in the Missouri Synod? And do you remember the questions you answered when you were confirmed? I don’t remember much about my confirmation time, but I’ve done a lot of confirmations, and so I know the questions. After talking about your baptism, and that you believe what happened at your baptism, the Rite of Confirmation asks this: “Do you intend to live according to the Word of God, and in faith, word, and deed, to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death?” And if you were confirmed, you said, yes, “I do, by the grace of God.” And then the next question asks, “Do you intend to remain steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?” And if you were confirmed, you said, yes, “I do, by the grace of God.”

Now, “suffer all” covers a lot of ground! Who knows what you might have to suffer, up to and including death, as a Christian? I bet that at eighth grade, or whenever you answered those questions, you could not have counted that cost. I don’t think anyone knows what being a Christian is going to cost. I don’t think the apostles, or the martyrs, or any Christian ever has been able to read the future and know exactly what it will cost them to follow after Jesus.

Maybe people think that being a Christian will make everything better in their lives, that everything will be bright and shiny and happy. Maybe they think that being a Christian will take away all their struggles, all their pain, all their suffering. Maybe they think that they will never be tempted to continue in that sin, whatever it is. I don’t know, but I can tell you that some people figure out that being a Christian is going to cost them. They figure out that it will cost them time, or money, or a job, or relationships, or whatever, and they leave Jesus. They might say they’re still Christians, but they don’t have anything to do with His Word or His Supper or His absolution. They don’t read the Bible or pray. There’s nothing that they do differently than if they said they weren’t Christians at all. But they’re not paying a cost. Maybe they think they can buy Jesus now and pay later. I don’t know.

            But Jesus isn’t selling anything, and neither is His Church, despite what some people think. Maybe the Church would grow if Jesus had some marketing experience, or if He had a better PR firm. But He doesn’t. Because He knows that this isn’t about buying or selling; it’s about life and death. He knows, and He promises, that even if you lose some things—even if you lose everything—it is not worth comparing to what you gain in Him. It’s not about feeling better here, or having nice things, or getting everything you want, or being successful. If anyone thinks it is, they haven’t paid attention to the life of Jesus, or of His apostles, just for starters. And, of course, it’s not about hate, contrary to the Fourth Commandment and everything else He says about husbands loving their wives, etc. It means that if you are following after Him, sometimes it might come down to Him versus something else. It might mean choosing between Jesus and your parents, or Jesus and your spouse, or Jesus and your brothers and sisters. Only God knows what the cost might be.

            But if you sit down and you figure out that you might not be able to pay that; if you sit down and realize you’re going to war against forces far too powerful for you; if your sin and your death are overwhelming for you, which they are; you should send ambassadors first about the things that make for peace. Make peace before Jesus goes to war against His enemies. As Jesus goes to Jerusalem, He weeps over her, over those within her who hated Him, rather than the place and the stuff they had, who refused to renounce anything for His sake. And He says, “If only you had known today, now, the things that make for peace,” and He is those things. He is, finally, the only peace there is.

            Because you may not know what it might cost you to follow Jesus, but He knows what it costs. He is, in fact, the only one who knows exactly, down to the last red cent, what your faith, and life, and salvation; what your faith and word and deeds; what your confession costs. He sat down and calculated it, and He knew: it would cost Him everything. It would cost Him entering into this tired, weak, temporary flesh. He knew it would cost Him this fragile body that can suffer and be pierced with nails and bleed and die. He knew it would cost Him His death and burial. He knows what your sin and death cost, because He experienced it in some impossible way on the cross. He knows it intimately, personally, completely. He finished what He started; He went to war by Himself against the devil, all sin, all death—yours, in particular. And He conquered. No peace for Him in this world. Just peace for you. Just life for you. Just a new and eternal life beyond anything you could imagine. You can’t count the cost of belonging to Him, but you also can’t imagine the riches of His glory that He has laid up for you. All this light, momentary affliction is gaining for you a heavy, eternal glory beyond all comparison with anything here. And if you happen to lose fathers or mothers, spouse or child, brothers or sisters, know that Jesus promises many more fathers and mothers, many more brothers and sisters, many more family members in His family, the Church. If you lose jobs or money or promotions or friends, He promises you many more times all of that in His Kingdom. Because eventually you will certainly give up everything you have. There’s no taking any of it with you from life into death. So you will give it up, and He will give you everything in His new creation, beyond any imagination or counting or human understanding.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 9/5/25