Luke 14:25-35
Pray with me. Lord, we give you
thanks for your everlasting love and kindness to us in Christ
Jesus. And out of gratitude for all that you have done, we come
before you bringing your tithes and our offerings, but also our
very lives. These are gifts to make the name
of Christ known to the far reaches of the world. We make our prayer
in the strong name of Jesus, whose light outshines the sun. In his name we pray. Amen. You
may be seated. Please turn in your copy of God’s
word to Luke 14. Our reading today is Luke 14
verses 25 to 35. We’re in that long section where
Jesus is making his way from Galilee where his ministry ended
and he makes his way to Jerusalem and through the area called Perea,
Jesus stops along the way in villages and synagogues and continues
to heal, he continues to teach. Sometimes the audience in our
passage from Luke is the Pharisees, sometimes it’s his immediate
disciples, and today it’s the crowds. And so let us hear God’s
word, the 14th chapter of Luke, beginning at verse 25. Jesus says, or this is the word
of God about the Lord Jesus. It says, now great crowds accompanied
him. And he turned and said to them,
if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother
and his 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 10,000 to meet him
who comes against him with 20,000. And if not, while the other is
yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms
of peace. Therefore, any one of you who
does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if salt has
lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the
soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has
ears to hear, let him hear. Let’s look to God in prayer once
again. Lord, we ask that you would give us ears to hear so
that we might be faithful disciples of you, our great God and Savior
and King. Hear us as we pray in the name
of Christ, amen. If you drive through Burlington
down Church Street and make a left on University Drive going towards
Alamance Crossing, Target Shopping Center on the left, Just before
you get that way, maybe at the intersection of, I think, University
Drive and rural, I can’t ever say it, rural retreat road, you
look to the left and there is an unfinished house. Now, some
of you remember when the only way to get down Rural Retreat
Road was off of St. Mark’s Road, even long before
they built the soccer fields and those sorts of things. That
was sort of the end of town, that area where University Drive
and all the shopping centers used to be farm fields, used
to be out in the country. If I remember correctly, there used
to not even be an interchange there with the interstate. But
this house was built sometime back then. It was when I was
a boy, so it’s been a good 25, 30 years ago. But this house,
as you ride by it, is a monument to, well, we have to guess, someone
who didn’t count the cost. And they began to build. And
as they built and neared completion, they ran out of resources and
did not complete it. And it echoes what we’ve just
heard in verses 28 through 30 of this parable in Luke’s gospel. When one goes out to build a
house or a tower, does he not first sit down and count the
cost to see whether or not he has enough to complete it? Otherwise,
when his house is incomplete, others begin to mock him and
say, see, he is unable to finish the work. Some of you also remember,
maybe about the time this house I speak of was being built, Iraq
invaded the little bitty country of Kuwait. Saddam Hussein in
his great pride wanted to expand his borders and Kuwait was going
to make for him a wonderful 19th province. And so he went to war. And he didn’t count the cost.
He did not realize the precious nature of oil. He did not realize
that the allies from around the world wanting to protect the
price of oil would come to the aid of little bitty Kuwait and
would take care of business. You all remember the first Gulf
War. And it’s a reminder of verses
31 and 32 in our passage. What king goes off to war with
10,000 and realizes he’s up against a king with 20,000, does not
pursue peace and does not pursue a treaty. And so Jesus here speaking
to the crowds says to them in the context of these two parables,
not counting the cost, and also three times in this context says
to them, you cannot be my disciples. He warns them about following
him. Remember a teacher in Jesus’
day would have been popular. People would have laid aside
lots of things to follow him and not only sit under his teaching,
but to work alongside him in the work of his enterprise. And
so Jesus speaking to the crowds three times says, you cannot
be my disciple if certain conditions are not met. Now Jesus would
not be on the modern American church speaking circuit, would
he? I mean, what is our motto in America? It’s nickels and
noses. Maybe some of you have grown
up in that era. You’ve been in the church in
the last 50 to 75 years, the American church growth era, nickels
and noses. Let’s get them in the door, whatever
way we can. Let’s get them in the seats and
get their nickels in the offering plates, nickels and noses. Jesus
would not be called to their, to their, church growth conferences,
I don’t believe. Not with parables like this,
count the cost before you decide to follow me. And not with statements
like, if you are unwilling to do this, you cannot be my disciples. What is Jesus saying to us? What
is he saying to the crowds? He’s saying this, you wanna follow
me, it’s a serious call. Following Jesus is a serious
call on one’s life. A would-be disciple of Jesus
must count the cost and must be willing to do several things.
There are four things, I believe this passage teaches us, that
if we are to follow Jesus, we must be willing to do these four
things. The first thing we must be willing
to do if we’re gonna be a disciple and we’ve counted the cost, the
first thing we must do is prioritize. Now, the word we find in verse
25, In verse 26 here, Jesus says, if anyone comes to me and does
not hate his own father and mother, his wife and his children and
his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot
be my disciple. Now, Jesus here is using a strong
word, the word hatred, especially in our current culture in 2020
in America, we associate hatred with one race against another,
one class against another, but what Jesus is speaking here is
really a word about priorities. In the ancient Near Eastern language,
this word hate that is used is not, you’ve done something to
me so I hate you, or I hate the Tar Heels, or I hate the Blue
Devils, you know how we throw these words around. It’s not
in that sense, but it’s in the ancient near Eastern sense of
the word and it’s literally to love less And we saw this illustrated
in the story of Jacob with Leah and Rachel Jacob loved Rachel
and Jacob loved Rachel with all his heart. He wanted to marry
her and and why Laban tricked him We’ll never know But it runs
in the family, doesn’t it? Didn’t you recognize, as we read
through that chapter and a half of the Bible, that all the things
that took place in this story of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah have
already taken place? Remember Jacob, when he was in
the womb, he was a cheat. Right? That’s what his name means.
Cheat. He’s a heel grasper. Jacob and Esau wrestled in the
womb and Jacob, it is said in the scriptures, uh, was born
after Esau, but he was holding onto his ankle as he was born.
Uh, there was great animosity in these families already. And
so you can imagine, uh, the, the payback in a sense that,
that Jacob received when he pulled back the veil. And instead of
seeing Rachel for whom he had worked and labored for that father-in-law
for seven years, he found Leah, but he loved Rachel and he loved
her so much. He was willing to work for that
lying, cheating father-in-law for what another seven years. And so when we understand this
story, uh, Jacob loved Leah. but he loved Rachel way more. And that’s what God is saying
here. We’ve got to have our priorities. If we’re gonna be disciples of
Jesus and count the cost of following him, we must prioritize. And we’ve got to love Jesus more
than we do our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters, our
wives, our children, our own lives, our things. We must love Jesus more. Now we love these things listed
much, don’t we? We love our wives, our children.
We love our fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters. After
all, they are our family. But is not Jesus more worthy? Is not Jesus more worthy? And
so we’re called as his disciples to love him more. Now some of
you are in Christian families. And in Christian families, it’s
easy to love Jesus and love your family too. But if you’re in
a family with lots of non-Christians, they sometimes wonder why you’re
so kooky, why you’re so strange. Why do you love this Jesus more
than you love us? But that is the call that Jesus
places on his disciples. And so as the gospel is going
out in the Judean countryside in the way of Perea, as Jesus
makes his way to Jerusalem, Jesus is saying, now, wait a minute
here. If you’re going to follow me, if you’re going to make me
your rabbi, if you’re going to make me your savior, you need
to think about it. Can you love me more than you
love what is precious to you? And that’s the first thing this
passage teaches us as disciples of Jesus, we must count the cost
and we must prioritize loving Jesus more than we love what
is precious to us. Well, the second thing this passage
teaches disciples is that if we’re going to be disciples of
Jesus, we’ve got to prioritize, but we also have to be willing
to suffer. Jesus is very clear. You must
be willing to suffer. And he says so in verse 27, whoever
does not bear his own cross cannot be my disciple. The gospel that
is preached often in America. is something like this. Come
to Jesus and all your problems will go away. Come to Jesus and
life will be a bed of roses. Find me one faithful Bible-believing,
God-honoring, Christ-loving Christian whose life is a bed of roses.
I don’t think you’ll find one. Coming to Jesus does solve some
of your problems. In fact, it solves your greatest
problem that there is an angry God who is angry at sin and that
one day his wrath and curse for your sin will be poured out on
you. But thanks be to God for Christ, for those who put their
faith and hope and trust in him. Our greatest problem, that is
our sin problem, has been resolved. Jesus has paid for our sins.
But coming to Jesus does not solve all of our earthly problems.
In fact, it creates new ones. We struggle as Christians with
three enemies. The classic enemies of the Christian
are the world and its systems and ways, its enticements. The
enemies of the Christian, in addition to the world, are the
devil. The devil who hates us and wants
to seek to destroy and devour and deceive us. And then there’s
the third enemy of the Christian, the flesh, our remaining sin. Our sin has been pardoned, it’s
been subdued, but there remains in us original corruption. And that original corruption
flares up, it follows us until we go to the grave and are glorified
in heaven. And so we struggle as Christians,
as disciples of Jesus, with the world and all that it offers,
with the devil and all that he does, and with the flesh and
all those inner struggles that we face day by day, struggling
to decide whether we will follow Jesus and the Holy Spirit or
the sin nature that is in us. And so Christians, if you are
going to follow Jesus seriously, you will suffer. You will suffer
from your own struggles with sin. You will suffer from the
outward attacks of the devil, but you will also suffer from
the world and all that it has to offer. And if you don’t think
persecution is headed our way, just look around at our country
and see the subtle attack on churches needing to close churches,
needing to shut down Christians. You cannot sing. If you go and
on and on, we’re seeing an intellectual attack, which we have been under
for quite a while. And now we’re saying, Maybe an
indirect attack on our call to worship God each Sunday. But
if you come to Jesus, you must count the cost and you must be
willing to suffer for him. Now, Jesus has already spoken
of this when he preached to the crowds in a couple of chapters
back. He’s preached the parable of the soils. The seed is sown,
the gospel seed, it falls on the path. Some falls on the rock,
others of it falls among the thorns and then some of it falls
on good soil. And when it falls on the rock,
I’m sorry, on the path, the devil steals that seed away and that
person never has the chance to embrace the gospel. When the
seed falls on the rock, it grows but it withers because it becomes
tested. It suffers, it endures trials. And it does not last because
that person would rather have comfort than suffer for Jesus. And then there’s the seed which
falls among the thorns. It is choked away by the cares
of the world. And Jesus is saying to us in
that parable, but also in the one before us today, if you’re
gonna be my disciple, count the cost. You’ve gotta prioritize,
you’ve gotta love Jesus more than anything, but you’ve gotta
be willing to suffer. Now this does not sound like
modern day evangelism, does it? You want all your problems to
go away, come to Jesus. Or you don’t wanna go to hell
now, do you? And then the great tactics of the last 150, 200
years of America that make us sound like, make evangelists
sound like car salesmen. What’s it gonna take for me to
put you in this gospel today? I wanna send you home tonight
as a child of Jesus. That’s sort of the tactics we’ve
had. Now, this is far from what Jesus
is doing. You must be willing to prioritize. You must be willing to suffer.
The third thing he says, you must be willing to follow me. Notice again in verse 27, whoever
does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. To follow Jesus in this context
means to Pick up and go with him. He’s on his way to Jerusalem.
So if you’re gonna follow Jesus, where are you gonna go? You’re
gonna go with him to Jerusalem. You’re gonna go with him and
learn from him. You’re gonna sit at his feet in the evenings.
You’re going to tent make with him to earn a living and provide
food, but you’re going to follow him and his teaching. What does
this really look like? Well, for some reason this week,
I thought of a lot of Old Testament stories to help illustrate this
passage. Jacob, Leah, and Rachel was a
wonderful help, I think, to understand how one can love greater and
lesser. But here we have this challenge
to follow Jesus. And I think of the story of Isaac
and Rebekah. Remember when Abraham was old,
he said to his servant, promise me this, servant, you’ll get
a wife for my son, Isaac. Remember, Isaac was the only
boy. He was the child of promise. And from Abraham through Isaac,
and then from the rest of the offspring of Abraham would come
the seed of promise, Jesus. And from that seed, Jesus, the
world would be blessed. And so Abraham said to his servant,
promise me you will not let Isaac marry one of the Canaanites or
one of the pagans of this nation. Go back to my family, go back
to our homeland and to our kinfolk and find for Isaac a wife there. And so the servant goes and you
know the story, he’s got his caravan of camels and all the
riches that Abraham has sent with him to provide for a bride.
And they come to a well and there is Rebecca to water the camels
and the animals. And of course, this servant finds
favor in God and goes home with Rebecca and her family. And it’s
agreed upon, she’ll go back with him and marry Isaac sight unseen. You’re getting a lot of strange
marriage practices today from the Old Testament. Couple wives,
concubines, all the rest. Not all that’s godly and biblical,
but it was the way of the day. But the next morning after they
feasted and had great joy and they sing God’s hand of providence,
what does the servant of Abraham say? Well, Rebecca, it’s time
to go. And the family says, no, we’d
like to keep her around about 10 more days, have eggs and toast
a few more times with her. And they say, well, let’s ask
her, and what does she say? I’ll go. I’ll follow. When you read
that story, especially you men in the church, you mothers in
the church who have daughters, would you send your daughter
away several thousand miles, sight unseen, to a man you don’t
know the next morning? Absolutely not. But what does
Rebecca do? I’ll follow, I’ll go. She gets
on her camel and she makes her way back to the land of Israel. And she sees Isaac from afar
and says, who’s that? And they say, that’s your husband.
And she gets off the camel. She pulls back her veil, they
get married and on it goes. Would you do that? That’s what
Jesus is saying here. Follow me, forsaking all, follow
me, attach yourself to Jesus. We sing a hymn from time to time,
trust and obey. And what is, That line we love
to sing, we sing it really loud. What he says, I will do. Where he sends, we will go. For all there is to do is but
to trust. and obey. And you see why Jesus,
now through these three things we have looked at, says, wait
a minute, crowds, you wanna follow me? Count the cost. It’s like
a man who’s gonna build a tower. It’s like a king who’s gonna
wage war. Count the cost. Look before you
leap. See if you can fulfill this calling. And so Jesus teaches them, he’s
teaching us, we’ve got to be willing to prioritize. We’ve
got to be willing to suffer for him and we’ve got to be willing
to follow him. There’s a fourth and final thing
our passage teaches us. We’ve got to be willing to abandon
all to follow Jesus. We find that in verse 33. He says, so therefore, any one
of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my
disciple. Jesus bumps into many people
along the way who say, Jesus, you’re the greatest thing I’ve
ever seen and heard. Wherever you go, I’m with you. Whatever
you say, I’m gonna do. They’ve been singing trust and
obey with full gusto. What does Jesus say to the rich
young ruler? Unless you sell it all and give to the poor,
You cannot be my disciple. Three times in this passage,
he says, if you’re unwilling to do this or that, you cannot
be my disciple. The call to follow Jesus is a
high one. It’s not this low business that
we preach in America. Come to Jesus and all your problems
will go away. Come to Jesus and you’ll have
a happy life skipping to heaven. No, you’ve got to be willing
to abandon everything. You’ve got to be willing to leave
house and wife and brothers and parents children for the sake
of the kingdom and Jesus promises in many places you will receive
many times more in the age that is to come I know some of you
have heard this story before it’s a great one but the great
Band of missionaries that were at Wheaton College, maybe in
the 1940s or 1950s together, Jim Elliott, Nate Saint, Roger
Udarian, and a couple of others, they and their wives went down
to Ecuador to preach the gospel to the tribes there, the man-eating
tribes they were. And they went down there with
all their skills, all their youth, all their great abilities. And
Jim Elliott was known to say this, He said, he is no fool
who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he will never lose. And isn’t that a statement that
summarizes our passage today? You are not a fool if you will
give up everything which you cannot keep in order to gain
what can never ever be lost. We hold on so tightly to our
things, don’t we? I mean, we get a lock box, we
get a bank security box and we put our deeds in there. We put
our properties in there. We put our stock certificates
in there. We want to make sure that when we go to bed at night,
we can shut our eyes in peace because our doors are locked.
Our tent pegs are staked deeply in the ground and our safety,
our valuables are locked up in safely. And Jesus is saying,
if you want to be my disciple, you need to let loose of these
things. You need to let loose of these things. This earth will
pass away. But there is an age to come that will last an eternity.
So you want to be a disciple, Jesus says. You want to be a
disciple, you’ve got to be all in. And you want to be a disciple,
you need to be an effective disciple. We have an American Christianity,
what we call a nominal Christian, Christian in name only. Sometimes
we say that person is a Sunday Christian. They come to church,
they sit up straight, but during the week they live as if there
is no God and as if Jesus hasn’t saved them. And Jesus has a little
something to say about this in conclusion. He lumps on this
little parable about salt without saltiness is worthless. And so
if you want to be an all in Jesus following disciple, you need
to be effective. You cannot be ineffective for
salt when it loses its saltiness. It’s not good for the manure
pile and it’s good for nothing else. It’s simply thrown away. And so he’s saying to the nominal
Christian, he’s saying to the disciple who said, yes, yes,
yes. And now says, no, no, no. If you lose your saltiness, you
cannot have that saltiness restored and you are useless. and you
are thrown out. Now, some of you are sitting
here and you’re counting the cost in your head and you’re saying,
I think I liked what I signed up for a long time ago. Come
to Jesus and all my problems will go away. Come to Jesus and
skip across the stone safely into heaven. Now, Jesus calling
on your life is a serious calling. Jesus himself here says so. And
you might be saying to yourself, this is too much to ask. It’s
too much to abandon my first loves. It’s too much to follow
Jesus anywhere he goes. It’s too much to suffer. It’s
too much to prioritize my life. In fact, it’s unfair. Jesus cannot
be serious and say to us, if you are unwilling, you cannot
be my disciple. But Jesus has done the very thing
that he asked of you. He has forsaken the riches of
heaven. He has forsaken the glory of
the heavenly realm. He has lost fellowship with his
father at the cross. He has come on a mission of redemption.
He has suffered in your place because you are his priority.
He could have said, no, God, I think I’m just going to let
these people die in their miserable sins. Stupid enough to do it,
stupid enough to live with it. I’m not leaving this place. I
love all the glories. But Jesus’ priority was you.
And he calls you this day to only follow in his footsteps,
which will indeed lead to glory. Let’s pray together. Lord, we
have heard your call. We know how difficult it is to
be your disciple. And we thank you that you change
our hearts so that we seek first your kingdom. We thank you that
you work in us so that our first love is you and our second and
third and fourth loves are other things. Lord, we want to say
with all our heart, as the great missionary said years ago, and
be no fool to give up what we can’t keep to gain what we never
lose. Lord, let our time, our talents, our treasures, our priorities
be fixed for eternity and not for things which will never last,
but will fade and be eaten and destroyed by moths and rust.
Hear us as we make our prayer in Jesus name, amen.