The sermon text provided below 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.

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.