About this sermon
Crowds follow Jesus, and he turns and tells them the cost of being his disciple. Anyone who does not ‘hate’ father, mother, wife, children, and even his own life cannot be his disciple, and anyone who does not renounce all he has cannot follow him. Jesus uses hyperbole to show that he must be dearer than loved ones, comfort, and possessions. The Son who sits at the Father’s right hand is worth that cost, and he sustains those who follow him to the end.
Sermon transcript
Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. Today’s passage is from Luke chapter 14 verses 25 through 33. The bulletin says 25 through 35 but we’re just going to read until verse 33. This is on page 1039 in the Pew Bible. Luke chapter 14 verses 25 through 33. 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 the terms of peace. So therefore any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. You may be seated. Let us pray. Lord we thank you that you have given us your word and that you have preserved it for us and for your church for hundreds and thousands of years.
Lord we thank you that we have this opportunity to come before you and to read this passage from Luke. Pray oh Lord that you would strengthen me as I bring the word preached to your people. I pray oh Lord that you would work and every one of those who is sitting and listening that they would be encouraged through your word and that they would be brought closer to your to your son Jesus Christ and to his likeness. I pray all this in your son’s name. Amen. What does it mean to be a disciple? And what does it mean according to Jesus to be a disciple? Well if you look in a dictionary it says that a disciple is one who is rather constantly associated with another person who has a reputation of teaching or with a particular set of views.
In other words a disciple is merely someone who is a student of a teacher who agrees with him and who closely follows him. Oftentimes and during the New Testament times the disciples of a teacher would not just follow the teacher in his thoughts and in his beliefs but they would physically follow him around as he went from town to town teaching. The same is found with Jesus in our passage this morning. As Jesus went from town to town teaching there would be hundreds and if not thousands following him hoping to hear him teach hoping to see a miracle and sometimes some of them would hope to eat the bread that they they heard he could multiply. Yet Jesus in our passage this morning instead of giving the crowds following him a winsome word to have them stay with them he gives them a stern warning that could turn them away.
Jesus in our passage this morning wants them those who follow him and wants you to know that to truly follow Christ to be a disciple of Christ may actually cost more than a time commitment or a portion of your salary. There is more to being a disciple than merely agreeing with Jesus and Jesus’s warning this morning tells us that becoming a disciple of Christ is not a decision to be made lightly. It’s a decision that will transform your life and it will transform every aspect of your life and thus have drastic consequences. Jesus really drives this point home by making it clear that he is more important than loved ones than our comfort and then our possessions and this will be the three main points that we will follow along that today’s passage that is that you are to consider Christ more than loved ones that you are to consider Christ more than comfort and that you are to consider Christ more than all that you have.
Let us turn to our first point that is consider Christ more than loved ones please turn with me to verse 26. Let us read it again verse 26 if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters yes even his own life he cannot be my disciple. Jesus begins his address with perhaps some of the hardest words that that he says for us to swallow. He tells us that we have to hate those that we love. Now many of us if not all of us have heard this passage repeatedly we have heard many convincing explanations as to what Jesus means here. Some say that the word hate here shouldn’t be translated as hate. According to them the first century in the first century Jewish context the word does not mean an extreme emotional dislike of someone rather they say it’s just a relational term that that should be translated as we should love our loved ones less than Jesus rather than hate them.
Well I understand the reasoning behind this I think that the translators here and the ESV and the other English translations rightly translated as hate. In other words in the literal sense of the word if we take Jesus literally Jesus is saying that we are to have a strong emotional dislike for those in our family if we are to follow him. But why would Jesus say something like that? Why would Jesus tell us that we are to hate our loved ones? Don’t the scriptures command us to do the opposite? The scriptures are clear in passages like Exodus chapter 20 verse 12 that is the fifth commandment that we are to honor and our father and our mother and Jesus himself affirms this commandment in Mark chapter 7 verses 9 through 13 where he actually scolds the Pharisees because they do not love their parents enough.
So the answer is that is to understand this verse like the very next few verses that is that Jesus is using hyperbole he’s using hyperbole to emphasize the point that he is trying to make. As I said Jesus had hundreds of people following him hoping to hear him teach hoping to see a miracle and hoping maybe to be healed themselves but he understood that many of them had no intentions of actually submitting themselves to him and thus Jesus to jolt them out of their dreams their dreams of being healed and not actually submitting to them uses this strong statements and he makes three strong statements not just one. He says that to be a disciple of Christ you must hate your loved ones you must carry your cross and you must sell all of your belongings.
So Jesus uses this strong word to wake us up and to make us truly consider the consequences of becoming one of his disciples. While he uses this word the strong word hate when we take this passage in the context of the rest of the scriptures which we alluded to earlier becomes clear that we are not to follow this command literally. We are not literally to go and hate our loved ones but we do need to understand the meaning behind the hyperbole. Jesus means that in relation to Christ and the relation in relation to the love that we have for Christ that our love for our loved ones should be like hate. In other words our love for Christ should be so strong that our love for others fades away in comparison for our love for Christ.
But what does this look like practically? Consider what it means to become a disciple of Christ. It means to take on his name. It means to submit to his will and it means to be completely transformed by the gospel in our thoughts and our words and in our deeds. And because of this utter transformation in the believer’s heart there is often as a result strife that is caused in families where some are believers and others are not. In one of the churches that my parents served at in Japan when I was growing up there was a visitor that had been coming for several years. This woman grew up going to Christian mission schools and when she was in high school she decided that she wanted to become baptized. So she went to her Buddhist parents and told them what she planned to do.
But being devout Buddhist parents they immediately forbade her from becoming a Christian and they told her if she were to be baptized they would disown her. Because of that one incident during high school she fell away from the church. Many decades later she found out about my church my parents church which was only a mile away from her and she decided for the first time in over 50 years to step foot into a church. And when she came for the first time I had never seen such a big smile on anyone at a church service before. Every time we sang hymns, every time we recited the Lord’s Prayer, every time we read the scriptures you could see this giant smile on this woman’s face. That smile remained every time she came to church. Yet years later she could never follow through and become baptized.
She knew that her children, her sisters, her brothers, her husband, her own flesh and blood would no longer accept her as one of their own if she became a Christian. This is a dilemma that is a very real dilemma in many parts of the world even today. Even in our own country in America while disowning or abuse are rare for converting there is stress, there is real stress that is caused by converting to Christianity. Especially as our culture drifts further and further away from its Christian roots the gap that exists between believing and unbelieving family members grows greater and greater. More recent polls have shown that family members and friends are disowning one another even in America for having different opinions. There is a fundamental cosmic tension that exists between the believer and the unbeliever and these differences show up in both small ways and in big ways.
But Jesus is looking to you and asking you when these tensions arise will you put him above all others? This is not a light topic to consider. There will be real world disagreement and strife that comes from it and you need to consider the potential difficulties that may arise in your family because of this decision and when you do so when you consider the potential disagreements and stress that may arise and on upon that thinking through those things if you make the decision then when those stress or those stresses arise you will not have to pick an allegiance in the midst of the strife. The analogy that Jesus gives to us in this passage is that of a builder who begins to build without considering the cost of the building and midway through he’s midway through building this building he realizes he doesn’t have enough money to actually finish the project.
Because he did not think through these these ramifications he is met with mocking and with scorn and we must understand the ramifications of what it means to be a true follower of Christ so that when hardship does come we know where our allegiance does lie. We can be preserved because to us Jesus is more important than all other things. Our father, our fathers, our mothers, our wives, our husbands, our children, yes he is even more important than our own lives. You must be willing to put down your own life for the sake of Christ. Thomas Boston a famous Scottish pastor said this regarding Jesus’s words. I’ve modernized the words because Scottish from like 400 years ago so but this is what basically this is what he says. Someone cannot be Christ’s disciple if Christ is not dearer to them than what is most dear to them in the whole world.
They may be a nominal disciple that is a disciple in name only but a true disciple they cannot be. In other words if there is someone we love more than Jesus we are not being a faithful disciple of Jesus. Likewise Jesus goes on to say that if we are to be disciples of Christ we must take up our own cross. Let us read verse 27 again verse 27. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. We know that Jesus does not mean that we have to physically carry a cross wherever we go. So what does it mean that we have to carry a cross? Now the disciples at this point don’t know that Jesus is going to die on a cross. They haven’t figured that out yet but they did know what the cross represented in their culture.
It represented one who is ostracized, one who is humiliated, and one who has to go through unbearable pain. And Jesus picks up on this imagery and he calls you and I to daily pick up this metaphorical cross and to live life in light of his cross. Now sometimes in our modern culture we hear people refer to hardship in their life as bearing a cross. You know if I have a sickness this is my cross to bear. But Phil Ryken a commentator notes that Jesus is not referring to common sickness or generic hardship when he says that we are to bear a cross. This is what he writes. In other words cross bearing is a particular kind of suffering. It is suffering we endure for the very reason that we are followers of Christ. Cross bearing therefore includes any form of persecution.
Whenever we are disrespected at school or disadvantaged at work or disowned by our families because we take a strong stand for Christ. In all of these cases we are bearing his cross. Whenever we face the spiritual and other hardships that come with whatever ministry we are doing in the name of Christ we are bearing his cross. We are also bearing his cross whenever we share the sufferings of other because we love them for Jesus’s sake. So there thus Jesus is broadening his requirements for what it means to be a believer. It is not just enough to be willing to give up your life for Christ. It is not just enough to put Christ before our loved ones. We must obey Christ in all that we do in every decision that we make in every word that we speak and everything that we do we must submit to Christ.
Sometimes it’s easy for us to think of carrying the cross as just a drastic situation like it’s only when we are faced with dying for Christ. But this is not what Christ is saying. Christ is not merely speaking of martyrdom. This is to be a daily act of rejection of our sin and a fear of man. When you fear having a conversation with someone who is close to you because you think that it may not go well, you think that it may cause tension between you and that person, you must carry your cross and not give in to the fear of man. When it’s easier to go along with your friends and family who do not know Christ because going against them could make things awkward or cost a relationship, you must take up your cross and bear the pain.
We must consider Christ more than hardship. We must consider Christ more than comfort. Jesus’s words here press us to consider do we love Christ more than our own safety, more than our own pride, more than our own family, and even more than our own lives. Lastly, Jesus says in verse 33, so therefore any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. In verse 33, Jesus calls us to consider Christ more than everything that we own. Once again, Jesus here uses hyperbole in order to shock his listeners into considering the true cost of following Christ. The question arises, are we sinning if we do not give away all of our possessions to the poor? Some politicians will use this verse to advocate for a view of Christ as some sort of socialist revolutionary, but once again this is not what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is using hyperbole to emphasize to us that we are to be willing to give up all that we have for Christ, and this is perhaps one of the hardest things for modern believers in America to do. We are so blessed to live in a to live in the most prosperous countries and times in history. Most of us do not go hungry. Most of us live a comfortable lifestyle and a wonderful house with a car or even two. We have so much more stuff than we could ever need, yet again and again we are pulled in by advertising that convinces us that we need the newest gadget in order to not be left behind. We may begin our Christian lives thinking that we have a clear idea that Christ is more important than everything that we own, yet as our lives go on the comforts of this life become more and more the center of our lives.
We can easily forget that these things that fill our homes with are just that, things. We cannot take them with us when we pass on and they do us no good in our standing with God, yet we structure our lives around the gaining of these things, around the maintaining of these things, and around showing these things to others, and this is a subtle yet deadly sin that can creep in to our lives. It shifts our priorities away from Christ and on to things, yet Jesus here reminds us that all of these things, money, possessions, reputation, loved ones, and even our own lives pale in comparison to the importance of our Lord Jesus. If you cannot see that Christ is above all these things and all of these things are worth losing in order to gain Christ, then you cannot become a true disciple of Christ according to Jesus, and this brings us to an important question.
Why ought we to consider Christ more than all of these things? Herein lies the most important point of all to grasp. Jesus in our passage this morning assumes that he is worth more than all of these things. Jesus doesn’t explain to the crowd why they should choose him above all of these things. He merely proclaims that this is the case. So you may be wondering, why is it that I have to be willing to give up all of these things for Jesus? After all, isn’t family a good thing? Loving my wife or my husband is a beautiful thing that is commanded by God. Taking care of my parents until they pass is a duty that Jesus himself commands of us, and according to the scriptures we are to love and to cherish our children, and yet Jesus here is saying that if it means compromise we must prioritize Jesus over all of these things.
What about our lives? What about the lives of others? Surely Jesus wants us to preserve our own life and others lives. Is it not acceptable to sin in some small way, to compromise in some small way, if it means preserving life? In our passage this morning Jesus answers this question with a resounding no. But the trade-off, the trade-off is not that we give up all things to gain something important. The trade-off is that we give up all things which are meaningless in comparison to the creator of the universe, who made all things and who loved us enough to put aside his glory and come to this earth to give us eternal life. When we truly see who Christ is, the things of this earth begin to fade away. But who is this Jesus that we speak of?
In the coming weeks we will learn more and more about Jesus and his coming, but I would like to look at just one passage this morning. Please turn with me to Hebrews 1. We will be reading a little bit of a longer passage, Hebrews 1 verses 1 through 13. Hebrews 1 verses 1 through 13. He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you? Or again I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. And again when he brings the firstborn into the world he says, let all God’s angels worship him.
Of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. But of the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. And you, O Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish but you will remain. They will all wear out like garments. Like a robe, you will roll them up. Like a garment, they will be changed. But you are the same and your years have no end. And to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
The reason why Jesus does not explain in this passage in great detail why he is more important, why he is more valuable than all of these things is because of who he is. Jesus is the eternal Son of God. He is begotten of the Father before all worlds. God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. He is one substance with the Father. Jesus created the universe and all that exists within it. He created you and I. He created every mountain, every valley, every ocean, every stream, every star, every planet, and by his word all that exists came into existence. All beauty that exists in this world, every time your breath is taken away by a sunset or a sunrise, when your heart skips a beat because your child walked for the first time or spoke for the first time, every single beauty that exists is because of Jesus and all of these things, all of these things are because of him.
All things which have value and beauty only have it out of the mercy and good pleasure of our Lord. So when we put all of these things on a scale and we put Christ on the other side, his glory, his majesty, his beauty, his love, his mercy, his justice, all of these things outweigh everything that we may have. And when we begin to see this, when we even get a glimpse of the glory of our Savior through the scriptures, through worship, and even through the love of our fellow believers, this is when we begin to understand why it is that Jesus outweighs everything that exists. Now this is enough. Who Jesus is, is enough for us to say as Paul says in Philippians 3, I count everything a lot a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. But this is not the only reason that the scriptures give us. Jesus does not say these words lightly to us. He does not command and demand from his disciples ultimate fealty in an uncaring or careless way. In fact, he did for us what he expects of us. Please turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12, Hebrews 12 verses 1 through 2. Hebrews 12 verses 1 through 2. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
What was that joy that was set before Jesus? Why did Jesus, as Paul says in another place, though he was in the form of God did not account equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. What was it that led Jesus to humble himself and die for you and for me? What was this joy? Among the many things that Christ received for faithfully carrying out his mission was his portion. And what is his portion? Please turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 32 verses 8 and 9. Deuteronomy 32 verses 8 and 9. Deuteronomy chapter 32 verses 8 and 9.
When the Most High gave to the gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind he fixed the borders of the people according to the number of the sons of God, but the Lord’s portion is his people. Jacob is his allotted inheritance. The people of God are Jesus’s portion. The joy that was set before Jesus was in large part the people of God, you and I. Jesus saw us sinful manned and he said, I will empty myself. I will take on human flesh. I will humble myself. I will step into creation. I will live with my creatures and I will die for them. He knew what his mission was from the very beginning. He knew that he had to die. He knew that he had to take on the wrath of the Father and yet he saw us.
He saw you and I and for the joy that was set before him he endured. He endured that pain. He endured the cross so that we could have life in him. Because of this there is no more reason for us to not follow him. All things that we may lose pale in comparison to the glory of our Savior. Jesus is not discouraging you here from becoming his disciple. In fact it’s the opposite. Jesus desires for all men, all women, all boys and girls to repent and to come to him. If you are thinking to yourself everything that you described here sounds too difficult. I love my family too much. I love my home too much. I can’t imagine giving these things up. Brothers and sisters, there’s nothing wrong with these good gifts that the Father has given you.
Jesus is not calling for you to give these things up right now but he is calling you to always be willing to give these things up for Christ and he is calling you to value your Savior over all of these things every moment of every day. So do not count the cost of the discipleship and turn away from Christ. Count the cost of discipleship and turn your eyes towards Christ who promises that he will sustain you and that he will guide you until the end. Thomas Boston sums it up this way and I will end with this quote. Christ of all objects is the most suitable to us and therefore he must be dearer to them, to us, than the dearest thing in the world. The soul which has long gone through the dry places of the world seeking rest and finding none when it comes to Christ it finds rest for the conscience under the cover of his blood and it finds rest to his heart and the fullness of dwelling in Christ which is commensurate to the unbounded desires of the heart and those desires can never be found, can never be satisfied by anything but an infinite good and therefore of necessity and of choice our souls settle here saying this is my rest.
Let us pray. Lord we thank you that you have not left us alone in this world. You have left us your glorious word. You have left us the words of your son Jesus Christ so that when we go through difficulty we can have encouragement. When we are unsure of what to do we can find wisdom and oh Lord we thank you that you have called us to be your disciples and as we read your word this morning it’s easy for us to think that we do not have the strength to be your disciples and oh Lord there is truth in this. We are weak and humble beings. Without you we do not have the strength to faithfully carry out your word. Yet we thank you once again that you have not left us alone. Your spirit guides us through the scriptures and gives us the strength to faithfully obey you and to faithfully love you until the end and I pray oh Lord that you would keep each one of us here sitting here, that you would keep us until the end, that you would encourage us, that you would bring us closer to Christ, that you would make us more faithful disciples of you.
In Christ’s name we pray, amen. Let us now turn to singing praise to God from hymn 524, hymn 524.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.