The Cost of Discipleship

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’”
— Matthew 16:24–25

For the past several weeks, we’ve been talking about discipleship—what it means to actually follow Jesus and become the kind of people He is calling us to be.

We’ve talked about repentance and how it is foundational to discipleship. Repentance is more than feeling sorry for something we’ve done. It means continually changing the way we think so that our thinking becomes aligned with the way of heaven.

Jesus now takes us a step further.

He tells us that following Him comes with a cost.

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”

That is a pretty different picture of discipleship than simply attending church, learning more Bible verses, or gathering more information about Jesus.

A disciple isn't simply someone who knows about Jesus. A disciple is someone who follows Jesus, stays close to Jesus, learns from Jesus, and becomes like Jesus.

Jesus gives us three simple instructions:

Deny yourself.
Take up your cross.
Follow Me.

1. Deny Yourself

We tend to think of discipleship primarily as learning.

And learning is important. We should study Scripture. We should grow in our understanding of God. We should become people who love truth and pursue wisdom.

But Jesus' emphasis on discipleship goes beyond information.

Information alone doesn't change us.

When I asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life, I was acknowledging something very important: I couldn't do this life by myself.

I chose to put my life in His hands.

My struggle is that I have a tendency to take it back.

I can start out trusting Jesus and then, somewhere along the way, begin navigating life according to my own understanding. I start trying to protect myself, preserve myself, control outcomes, and figure everything out on my own.

And when I do that, fear often becomes my guide.

Self-preservation becomes the goal.

But discipleship invites us into something different.

Instead of asking, “How can I protect myself?” we begin asking, “Jesus, what are You saying? What does following You look like here?”

Instead of trusting our own understanding, we learn to trust Him.

Denying ourselves doesn't mean that we become insignificant or that God doesn't care about our needs. It means that Jesus becomes the greatest influence in our lives.

We surrender our right to always have things our way.

We surrender our need to control everything.

We surrender our tendency to rely on ourselves instead of trusting Him.

There is a difference between being a student and being a disciple.

Students gather information. Followers discover transformation.

2. Take Up Your Cross

Jesus then says:

“Take up his cross.”

The cross was not merely an unpleasant circumstance Jesus had to endure. The cross represented His willingness to lay down His life so that others could live.

For Jesus, the cross meant death.

For us, the cross ultimately leads to life.

Taking up our cross means laying aside our insistence on living life according to our own agenda and learning to live according to the way of Jesus.

The Greek word translated disciple is mathetes. It refers to a learner, student, or apprentice—someone who attaches themselves to a teacher and adopts that teacher's way of life.

Jesus said:

“A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”
— Luke 6:40

That's the goal.

To become like our Teacher.

Following Jesus means:

• I attach myself to Him.

• I learn His way of life.

• I progressively order my life around His way of living.

This is why discipleship can't simply be about what we know.

We aren't just trying to know more about Jesus.

We're trying to become more like Jesus.

We want His way of thinking to become our way of thinking.

His way of responding to people to become our way of responding.

His compassion to become our compassion.

His humility to become our humility.

His way of loving people to become our way of loving people.

His way of trusting the Father to become our way of trusting God.

That's what it means to take up our cross.

3. Follow Me

Finally, Jesus says:

“Follow Me.”

There is something very practical about that word.

A follower walks behind the one who leads.

The follower doesn't simply study the leader's footsteps. The follower takes the same steps.

This is where discipleship becomes practice.

We can hear a teaching and agree with it.

We can study a passage and understand it.

We can take notes, highlight our Bible, listen to podcasts, read books, attend classes, and accumulate tremendous amounts of information.

But the question is:

Are we actually practicing what Jesus is teaching us?

To hear Jesus is to move toward obedience.

Not simply to catalog what He said.

Not merely to analyze it.

Not just to examine it.

We practice it.

Jesus didn't say, “Come and gather information about Me.”

He said:

“Follow Me.”

That means there are times when following Jesus will require us to do something different than what feels natural.

We may need to forgive when we would rather hold onto offense.

We may need to serve when we would rather be served.

We may need to humble ourselves when our pride wants to defend itself.

We may need to trust when fear tells us to protect ourselves.

We may need to love someone who is difficult to love.

We may need to listen instead of trying to win an argument.

We may need to surrender our plans because Jesus is leading us somewhere different.

This is where discipleship becomes real.

Discipleship Happens in Relationship

And this is why relationships matter so much.

We don't become like Jesus simply by accumulating information.

We become like Jesus as we walk with Jesus and learn to live His way in relationship with other people.

That's one of the reasons we're so passionate about discipleship at Shiloh.

We want to create a culture where we don't just talk about following Jesus—we actually help one another follow Him.

We practice forgiveness together.

We practice healthy communication together.

We learn to listen to God together.

We encourage one another.

We challenge one another.

We celebrate growth.

And when we get off track, we help one another find our way back.

Discipleship isn't simply a class we attend.

It's a life we live.

The Cost Is Actually the Way to Life

Jesus finishes this teaching with a powerful statement:

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

The world tells us that the goal of life is to protect ourselves, improve ourselves, accumulate more, and make sure we get what we want.

Jesus presents another way.

Lose your life—and you will find it.

That sounds backwards until we understand who Jesus is.

Jesus isn't asking us to give up our lives so that we can have less.

He's inviting us to surrender the life we were never capable of managing on our own so that we can receive the life He designed us to live.

The cost of discipleship is surrender.

But on the other side of surrender is life.

The question isn't simply:

“What do I know about Jesus?”

The better question is:

“Am I following Jesus?”

Am I staying close to Him?

Am I learning His ways?

Am I practicing what He teaches?

Am I allowing Him to reshape the way I think, respond, love, forgive, serve, and live?

Because ultimately, the goal of discipleship isn't simply to know more.

The goal is to become like Jesus.

And that's a journey we were never meant to walk alone.

Let's follow Him together.