Luke 14:25-35
We find ourselves at a time in the life of our Lord when He is moving from town to town and village to village and He is preaching to the people, doing miracles, and healing. Always, He is calling people to follow Him, to become His disciples, and to come after Him. At the same time that he is calling them to come to him, they are walking away because of his radical requirements.
We read in John 6:66 that, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. It seems, when you study the words of Jesus, especially in Luke, that instead of pointing out the promises associated with following Him, He always seemed to point out the costs…exactly the opposite of what we are told to do today by most church growth gurus.
We are told to point out the promises and the positives in hopes that people will respond and maybe later on they will be willing to pay the price of discipleship. We are told to devise a gospel or a message that is easy to receive and easy to accept and easy to believe. Well, Jesus' words are not usually so palatable. Here the Word of God in Luke 14:25-35.
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 "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. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 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? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 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? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. 34 "Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 35 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."
The basic message that Christ delivers here is found in many other places in the four gospels, so we know this to be a normal part of His teaching. And these teachings are extreme. The nature of His call is extreme. What does this message teach us about the call to follow him? First, we see the Comprehensive Nature of the Call in verses 25-26a .
There are those who would preach, teach, and say that the invitation Jesus extends here is not for all. It is not a comprehensive call. It was only for those closest to him. There are those who see their need of a Savior, they pray asking Christ to forgive them, and redeem them, and they go on with their life never growing and never really changing. Then there are others who really feel led to go deeper. They are really interested in spiritual things. These people are the ones that this applies to. This is not for all Christians. It is for the deeply committed. This gospel call however is a comprehensive call. It is for everyone. This is not a call to a deeper walk. It is a call to a walk. This is not a call for the special forces. This is a call that he extends to the crowd (now great crowds accompanied him v25). This is a call that begins with "If anyone." This is a comprehensive call.
We not only see the comprehensive nature of the call, but also the Conditional Nature of the Call. This is not an open ended call to come as you choose to come. You cannot come as you choose to come. You must meet His conditions. There are 3 conditions that he lays down for us in this passage. Three times he says, if you do not meet these conditions you cannot be my disciple. First, there is the Condition of Your Relationships in 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, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. What he is really communicating is not a literal hatred for your parents and family, but a love for him that surpasses your love for your family. He says it this way in Matt 10:37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. In other words, your relationships are all subordinated. What honors Me, what pleases Me, what I desire, what I will, what I command as the Lord of your life takes precedent over all other demands and relationships. What's interesting (here is what we so often miss) is what pleases God is for us to obey our parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord (Col 3:20). What pleases God is for us to honor our fathers and our mothers (Ex 20:12). What pleases Christ, honors Him, and brings Him glory is for wives to submit to their own husbands as to the Lord, and for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...for husbands to hold fast to, cling to, their wives (Eph 5). If we put Jesus 1st, he will subordinate our relationships, but in doing so he will demand that our family relationships deepen, not diminish. If your marriage is suffering, your relationship with God is suffering. You cannot even pray effectively. If you lose your marriage and family, you lose your ministry and your witness! Do not sacrifice your marriage and family on the altar of the church, because the church is not your God. Jesus Christ must come before any other relationship that we have, however when he comes first it will result in our family relationships deepening, not diminishing.
There is not only the condition of our relationships, but there is also the Condition of Your Life. Jesus said in verse 27, Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Jesus' call demands that we bear our cross. While there are many different interpretations concerning what Jesus means by this, Christ's original audience knew exactly what he was calling for. Perhaps some 30,000 were crucified during the lifetime of Christ alone. The disciples knew exactly what to expect and it was not good. They immediately pictured a poor, condemned soul walking along the road carrying the instrument of his execution on his own back. And one thing about that man, if he was seen leaving town carrying a cross, he was not coming back. He was as good as dead!
Jesus is saying, this is what you have to be willing to embrace and endure if you will follow me. Jesus said, you must willingly and intentionally take up your life. He put it this way in Luke 9:23. And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Every day, we must die to ourselves. Paul said, I die daily. Everyday, we must crucify the flesh. Paul tells us in Gal 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
There is not only the condition of our relationships and our lives, but there is also the Condition of Your Riches described for us by Christ in verse 33. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Along with willingness to place him above family and life, Jesus also calls his followers, to surrender their possessions to his Lordship. The original language in verse 33 for "give up" is to say good-bye to. We must be willing to give up our finances to follow Christ. Peter, Andrew, James, and John gave up their nets, boats, and jobs to follow him. Matthew gave up his high paying position as a tax collector to follow Him. Zachaeus paid back all that he had stolen and gave half of his goods to the poor. Christ will subordinate your riches, and if he hasn't, you need to examine yourself.
This is clearly a conditional call. You cannot be my disciple, you cannot be my disciple, you cannot be my disciple! Here is what he is asking. If your family was going to become your enemies and hate you because you came to Christ would you come? OR If I were to ask you to lay down your life, pride, and your desires for your family, would you? Not because they deserve it, but because I said so. And if you had plans and ambitions in certain things and I asked you to do other than that and My Spirit directed you to give your life in some service over here, would you be willing to do that? And if I asked you to take everything you have, sell it all and give it to the poor, would you be willing to do that? And even if I asked you to die in the cause, would you do that? You become a steward of everything and an owner of nothing. Is Christ worth everything to you? He was to Paul. Paul wrote in Phil 3:8, "Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ."
Have you come to Christ on his conditions? Is he more precious to you than your family, than your riches, and than your very life? He will not be your co-pilot. He must be the pilot. He will not play second fiddle to anyone or anything. He must be your Savior and your Lord. Are you counting all things as rubbish, that you may gain Christ?
Next time we will see that this call is not only comprehensive and conditional, but it is costly. Until then…
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