James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
Luke 14:28
TOWER BUILDING
‘For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost.… This man began to build, and was not able to finish.’
In the parable set before us is one who without counting the cost set to work to build a tower, and was not able to finish it. He thus became an object of ridicule to his neighbours.
It is not difficult surely to apply the lesson of the parable to ourselves. In one sense, indeed, I doubt whether there is any one here present who has not experienced the unfinished tower, who has not some time or another grown weary under the thraldom of some besetting sin, some bad habit. And this because he has not first counted the cost and found out that he has no strength of his own.
I. A tower of holiness.—The motto for the Christian banner is, ‘Higher, evermore higher.’ The aim set before each one of us is, ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’ It is indeed a mark which can never be reached in this life, but our life now is to be a continual progress towards it. It was this that St. Paul tells us he devoted all his energies to. ‘This one thing I do, I press towards the mark.’ But how is this to be done? How, when there are so many towers building around us and by us, towers of usefulness, towers of fame, and most of all towers of mere earthly riches, mere glittering gold, how, bewildered by all these, are we to be diligent in building up the unpretending tower of holiness? Well, we must remember first and last that we are Christians. Christian progress is only possible in Christ. We must begin with simple faith in Him. The foundation of all human goodness must be made deep in the blood of the Redeemer’s Cross, and in the power of His Resurrection. God has a will concerning each one of us. We are not to hurry blindly first here and then there, where various ambitions rise before us, but for His faithful ones God orders all for good, He renders all progressive towards the great end. Apart from Christ all earthly ambitions must surely sooner or later end in bitter disappointment, but in Him not one sphere of honourable industry is unblessed.
II. A tower of usefulness.—Let me speak briefly of another tower, a tower of usefulness. I mean usefulness in its highest sense, that of working as a member of Christ’s Church for Christ. I seek not to answer the question as to what form this work is to take. Each one may best answer this for himself. In these days the opportunities for doing work for Christ and showing a living interest in our brother’s welfare cannot be said to be far to seek. There is abundant work for every member of this congregation to do in his own parish. In the work of usefulness there is every need of self-forgetfulness. It is enough for the most ambitious of men that God should deign to accept his services and make him an instrument for good. It is not any particular scheme of our own; it is God’s work that we have to strive for, and thus it is only when we do really surrender ourselves to God that we can do Him true and laudable service. We can all of us speak of self-surrender, but when we stop to think what it really means we cannot but feel a kind of shame. How full our days are of selfishness! Self-denial and self-sacrifice are doctrines far beyond us, impossible for our faith to attain to. And so, indeed, they are, but for one thought giving illumination to our path—‘the love of Christ constraineth us.’ Thus alone can the work of our life be made acceptable, not an unfinished tower, open to all the winds and rains of heaven, standing with its incomplete buildings ready to fall to pieces at the last great day, but a perfect building founded upon a rock, pointing towards heaven. Such a house will stand unshaken amid the ruins of that day.
Bishop C. H. Turner.
Illustration
‘How many are there of us, I wonder, who can bear to labour earnestly in good causes for years with no apparent result, and then at last to see the object attained, and yet, as it seemed not by our means or not in a manner that we wished, perhaps our own labour altogether forgotten? Who can bear this, I say, and be simply thankful? And yet this has been the lot of numberless saints of God. It is a wholesome discipline for us. We learn that we cannot in our own strength do any work for God; we are but instruments in His hands to be directed by Him. In undertaking each good work, set before your mind the example of our Saviour Christ, “Lo! I come to do Thy will, O God.” “Not My will, but Thine be done,” with only one object, and that is God’s will, for the edification of His Church, the good of His service.’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE TRUE AIM OF DISCIPLESHIP
I. The building, or the true aim of discipleship.
(a) We are all building a house for our souls.
(b) What are you building?—a prison, or a house for God?
(c) What is Christianity for? For building.
II. The cost of the building, or the conditions of discipleship.
(a) Constant reference to the plan. The Bible is our plan.
(b) Continuous effort. You cannot ‘rush up’ a great edifice.
(c) Self-surrender—i.e. concentration and self-denial.
III. Note the failures.—Tower of the rash builder stands a gaunt, staring ruin.
Illustration
‘A certain man made public confession of faith in a surrender to Christ; whereupon his worldly friends lamented together that they would lose the enjoyment of the worldly entertainments for which his house had been noted. Not long after, these entertainments were resumed, and the profession allowed to fade away; with the result that the very friends who had respected, though they lamented, his change, now mocked at it and said: “After all, it has not made much difference.” The world which rejects the claims of Christ has often a keener apprehension of what those claims demand than the Christian who is careless about obeying them. The world can respect, even if it hates, the thorough disciple; but it mocks, even while it welcomes, the half-hearted and backsliding professor of religion.’
(THIRD OUTLINE)
.
EXAMPLES OF COUNTING THE COST
Look at some examples of counting the cost.
I. St. Peter.—When our Lord was enforcing the need for leaving all to follow Him, and St. Peter had asked the reward for doing so, He answered: ‘Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake, and the Gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life’ (Mark 10:29). A proper counting of the cost will therefore put down the loss of ten thousand per cent—for such is the value of ‘an hundredfold’—to every one, who refuses to leave aught that stands in the way of discipleship.
II. St. Paul.—Again, when St. Paul counted the cost, he reckoned ‘that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us’ (Romans 8:18); he declared that ‘our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory’ (2 Corinthians 4:17); he counted the seven topics of human righteousness he possessed to be ‘but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord’ (Php_3:8).
III. Moses.—Again, of Moses we are told the double comparison he made, ‘choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward’ (Hebrews 11:25).
IV. The glory to be gained.—Once more, in the second and third Chapter s of Revelation, there is put before us a sevenfold reward and glory to be gained by those who consent to the sevenfold conditions of overcoming. Surely here are found the materials for calculation, and a right estimate of profit and loss. Who can endure to lose such glories, both present and eternal, for the fleeting and illusive profit of a passing moment?
Let us sit down, count the cost, and decide for God. The principle of the true Christian life is given in the words, ‘We walk by faith, not by sight’ (2 Corinthians 5:7); and nowhere is the victory over sight more needed than when balancing the matters of profit and loss in the service of Christ.
—Rev. Hubert Brooke.