When Obedience Is Costly
Obedience to God will sometimes cost you something real. That cost does not mean you are wrong.
Episode twelve opens the suffering and formation arc by moving past easy language about surrender and confronting the real cost of obedience. Using Luke 9:23 as the anchor, this episode looks honestly at what it costs to follow Jesus — and argues that the cost is not evidence of disobedience, but the mark of genuine obedience.
Episode Goal
Prepare the listener for the actual cost of obedience by naming it honestly before the bill arrives. Most teaching on obedience focuses on its blessings without adequately preparing people for its costs. When those costs come — the lost relationship, the surrendered opportunity, the forfeited comfort — people are tempted to interpret the difficulty as a sign that they made the wrong choice. This episode argues the opposite.
Core Claim
Jesus says in Luke 9:23: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Deny yourself, take up a cross, follow. These are not metaphors for minor inconvenience. They are descriptions of a costly, ongoing, deliberate choice to follow Jesus wherever He leads rather than where comfort prefers to go. The cost of obedience is not incidental to the Christian life. It is built into it.
Primary Scripture
- Luke 9:23
Supporting Scriptures
- Luke 9:24–26
- Matthew 19:21–22
- Philippians 3:7–8
- Acts 5:40–41
- John 15:20
Episode Shape
- Name the gap: most obedience teaching emphasizes blessing without adequately naming cost.
- Luke 9:23: deny yourself, take up your cross, follow — what each phrase means.
- What obedience can cost: comfort, relationships, status, money, image, control.
- Why the cost does not mean you are wrong: the cost is built into the call.
- The exchange: what is gained is more than what is given up — but the giving up is real.
Tone Direction
- honest and weighty without becoming discouraging
- not minimizing the real cost — that would be dishonest and ultimately harmful
- pastoral enough to hold people who are currently paying a real cost
- theologically grounded in a view of suffering as formation, not accident
Cold Open Options
Option A
A lot of teaching on obedience stays in the language of surrender without addressing what surrender actually costs. And when the cost arrives — the lost relationship, the closed door, the thing that had to be given up — people are often unprepared. This episode names the cost before it arrives.
Option B
Jesus does not recruit followers with fine print. He says it plainly upfront: follow me, and you will need to deny yourself and take up a cross. That is the deal. Not the exception. The deal.
Option C
The difficulty that follows genuine obedience is not evidence that you made the wrong choice. Sometimes it is evidence that you made the right one.
Recommended Structure With Time Targets
- 0:00–5:00 Opening: the gap between obedience teaching and obedience reality
- 5:00–16:00 Luke 9:23: deny yourself, take up your cross daily, follow
- 16:00–28:00 What obedience can genuinely cost — naming the categories
- 28:00–37:00 Why the cost is not a sign you are wrong — the cost is in the call
- 37:00–43:00 The Philippians 3 exchange: what Paul calls gain vs. what he gave up
- 43:00–47:00 Reflection questions and close
Draft Intro
Welcome to Know God. Now Go.
In the episodes behind us, we have talked about the flesh and the Spirit, temptation, delay, and habits. All of it has been about what the Christian life requires on the inside.
Today I want to talk about what it can cost on the outside.
Because obedience to God is not always comfortable, welcomed, or consequence-free.
And for some people, the hardest moment in their spiritual life is not the decision to obey. It is what happens after they obey and the cost becomes real.
Jesus does not hide this.
In Luke 9:23, He says: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
Deny yourself. Take up a cross. Follow.
This episode is about what that actually means when obedience asks for something real.
Full Word-for-Word Script
Welcome to Know God. Now Go.
There is a version of teaching on obedience that mostly describes its rewards.
God blesses the obedient. The life of the person who walks with God is full and rich. Obedience leads to flourishing.
And all of that is true.
But it is incomplete. Because the same Scripture that describes the blessing of obedience also describes a cost that is not small.
And when people obey without being prepared for that cost, the cost can feel like a sign that something went wrong. Like obedience was supposed to produce smooth results, and the difficulty arriving must mean the direction was off.
But that is not what Jesus says.
In Luke 9:23, He says: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
Three things.
Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me.
Each one of these phrases carries weight.
To deny yourself is not to deny your existence. It is to deny the claim of self as the center of decision-making.
Most people live with self as the primary reference point. What do I want? What is best for me? What satisfies my preferences, my comfort, my image?
Following Jesus means setting aside that reference point and replacing it with another: what is He asking?
That is not easy, and it is not painless.
The self does not step aside quietly. It argues. It protests. It produces fear and resistance and the very real experience of wanting things to be different than they are.
To take up a cross is to accept a specific weight — a specific demand — that the way you are going will cost something.
A cross in the Roman world was not a piece of jewelry. It was a symbol of death. Of forfeiting your own agenda to something that cost you completely.
Jesus is not using soft language here.
And the word daily matters.
This is not a one-time surrender. It is an ongoing choice — renewed each day — to walk with God wherever that leads rather than where convenience would prefer.
Then follow me.
Following requires movement. It requires going where the one ahead of you goes. And it means you do not get to determine the route.
So what does obedience actually cost?
It can cost comfort. The way God calls you to live is sometimes significantly different from the way that is most comfortable, and moving into alignment with His word can mean giving up a kind of ease you were used to.
It can cost relationships. There are people who will not understand, who will oppose the direction, who will distance themselves when obedience changes who you are or what you participate in.
It can cost status. Following Jesus in certain environments means being willing to be misunderstood, underestimated, or dismissed.
It can cost money. Generosity, integrity, and refusal to participate in certain things can all carry financial cost.
It can cost image. Obedience in the interior — the honest person who stops managing their presentation — can be more vulnerable and less polished than the version that was performing.
It can cost control. Surrender is not a mood. It is the ongoing release of your grip on outcomes you thought you were managing.
And when those costs arrive, the temptation is to interpret the difficulty as a signal to retreat.
Surely if this were right, it would not be this hard.
But Jesus says otherwise.
He says in John 15:20: “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
And in Acts 5, when the apostles were beaten for preaching, they left the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.
They interpreted the cost as evidence of alignment, not as a sign of being wrong.
Paul writes in Philippians 3 that he counted everything he had — his heritage, his status, his education, his position — as loss for the sake of knowing Christ.
And he does not describe it as a painful sacrifice he endures.
He calls it gain.
Not because what he gave up was not real. It was real.
But because what he gained — the knowing of Christ, the being found in Him, the righteousness that comes through faith — was worth more.
The exchange is real on both sides.
You may give up something real. That loss is not imaginary.
But what you gain cannot be compared to what you gave.
That does not make the cost disappear. It makes it bearable. It makes it meaningful. It puts it in a frame that the world cannot provide.
So if you are currently in a season where obedience is costing you something — where following God has meant a real loss, a real difficulty, a real experience of what it means to deny yourself and take up a cross — I want to say two things.
First: that cost does not mean you are wrong.
It may be the clearest evidence that you are right.
Second: the One asking you to bear this cost bore an infinitely greater one for you.
And He does not call you to a place He has not already been.
This is Know God. Now Go.
Segment Notes
Segment 1: The Gap Between Obedience Teaching and Obedience Reality
- Name the version of obedience teaching that stays in the blessings.
- The gap shows up when the cost arrives and the person was not prepared for it.
- Frame this episode as the honest companion to episode 3 on the blessing of obedience.
Suggested lines:
The blessing of obedience is real. But so is the cost. And the person who obeys expecting only smooth results will be destabilized when the difficulty comes.
Segment 2: Luke 9:23 — Three Phrases Unpacked
- Deny yourself: the self is no longer the primary reference point
- Take up your cross: accept a specific, ongoing cost
- Follow me: movement in the direction Jesus sets, not the one you prefer
Suggested lines:
Jesus does not use the language of slight inconvenience. He uses the language of death — daily. That is the call. Not a soft version of it.
Segment 3: What Obedience Can Cost
Work through the categories:
- comfort, relationships, status, money, image, control
Keep each concrete. Use second-person direct address.
Suggested transition:
Each of these is a real cost. Not theoretical. The person who has given up a relationship to walk faithfully with God knows that was not nothing. The person who gave up a professional opportunity to refuse compromise knows the cost was real.
Segment 4: The Cost Is Not Evidence You Are Wrong
- John 15:20: if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you
- Acts 5: the apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name
- The cost can be the clearest sign of alignment, not misalignment
Suggested lines:
The difficulty that follows obedience is not a signal to retreat. It is often the most honest confirmation that you are going the right direction.
Segment 5: The Philippians 3 Exchange
- Paul counts everything as loss for the sake of knowing Christ
- The exchange is real on both sides: real loss, incomparable gain
- Not minimizing the cost — naming the frame that makes it bearable
Suggested close:
What you give up in obedience is real. Paul does not pretend otherwise. But he calls it rubbish compared to knowing Christ. Not because the cost was nothing. Because what he received was everything.
Reflection Questions
- Is there an area of obedience I have been avoiding because I am afraid of the cost?
- What specifically am I afraid of losing — and have I brought that fear honestly before God?
- Has the cost of recent obedience felt like evidence that something went wrong? What would it look like to reframe that?
- What might I be gaining through the cost that I cannot yet see clearly?
Recording Notes
- Match the weight of the subject in your tone and pacing. This episode should feel serious.
- Do not rush Luke 9:23 — each word matters.
- The apostles in Acts 5 rejoicing after being beaten is a striking image. Let it be unusual and striking rather than domesticating it.
- End with the cross of Christ as the ground of everything. Do not close without it.