Count the Cost

One day Jesus was talking to his disciples concerning the cost of discipleship. He said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his life-he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26-27).”
Then He followed by giving this illustration. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’”
You would think that it is only an illustration, and it doesn’t really happen in real life. But when it does happen, it’s not funny.
This week, the Wall Street Journal reported about the extravagant world-class concert hall that the city of Hamburg, Germany is building. It has taken more than 7 years so far and the city is in trouble because the cost has risen every year from the estimate of 40-77 million Euros (50-100 million dollars) in 2003 to the most recent estimate of 543 million Euros. This represents almost a 10 fold increase from the initial estimate. In order to finish it, the taxpayers will have to rescue them.
There was another report from one of the Korean news media outlets that I subscribe to. The city of Sung Nam, a city just outside of Seoul, ambitiously built its city hall a few years ago, costing more than 250 million dollars. There was a lot of criticism at the time that it was too big and too luxurious. But it didn’t stop the city from building it. The city, however, revealed this week that it cannot continue to pay its loan. The loan amounts to more than 400 million dollars. If they cannot make the payment, the residents will probably rescue them. How silly!
How about you? Are you being wise in your investment? Do you have enough money to complete the project? Of course, I am not talking about building a house. I am talking about your spiritual life, your commitment to God.
I am sort of taking personal stock of my life these days, and that is one of the purposes of taking a sabbatical. I’m sitting down and estimating the cost. I’m trying to estimate if I will have enough time and energy and resources, as well as commitment and endurance to finish what I have started out to do. And I want to encourage you to take the same journey if you can. I know that you don’t have the luxury that I have by taking a long break to accomplish this. But I still want to encourage you to nonetheless attempt it in your own way.
Jesus finished the story by offering this challenge. “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out (Luke 14:34).”
Our mission is to be the salt of the earth. And in order to do that, however, we must accept the somber challenge and count the cost so we can finish the project. We don’t want to become the laughing stock because we started our walk with God but couldn’t finish.

July 18, 2010
Dr. W. Jamie Kim