Planting Churches Among the City's Poor - Volume 2

192 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 2

Counting the Cost and Hearing the Spirit Responding to the Call Rev. Terry G. Cornett and Rev. Dr. Don L. Davis

Sit Down First and Count the Cost

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

~ Luke 14.26-33 (ESV)

I. Have I Discerned the Call of God on my Life Regarding Planting Churches in the City?

A. Where does my heart stand today on my role in church planting?

2 Cor. 5.11-15 (ESV) – Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.