A Call to Surrender

One of my favorite movies is the 2006 movie Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig as James Bond. I particularly like the scenes where he is playing a high stakes poker game sitting across the table from the bad guy. His mission is to win the poker game and bankrupt the bad guy so he can’t continue to fund terrorism. So it’s high stakes not just because the money to be won is in the millions, but the bankruptcy of a terrorist organization is at stake. So it creates this really tense moment. The game is played by collecting the best hand of cards or outwitting your opponents through a bluff. Your confidence leads the other players to believe your hand is greater than theirs so they fold, or give up the round. My favorite part is watching the moment when someone goes all-in. That means they are placing all their chips on the table. All their money is on the line and you wait to see if they can get the other players to fold or if someone calls their bluff and they lose everything.

While we could talk about the moral implications of gambling from a biblical perspective, that is not the topic of today’s sermon. But Jesus desires followers who like the poker player will put it all on the table for him. That’s what we are talking about over the next few weeks is understanding what it means to go all in for Christ.

Jesus had been working his ministry, traveling from town to town, teaching and performing miracles. He was invited to the house of a Pharisee where Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath which sparked controversy. He tells two parables, and after this dinner, a large crowd is following Jesus and he stops to address the cost of following him.

Luke 14:25–33 NASB95

Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “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. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? “Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

Jesus had a large following. He was very successful at attracting a crowd. But we should not be mistaken in thinking that everybody in the crowd was a true follower of Jesus. He was a popular guy, but he wanted people to understand what was at stake for following him. No other rabbi was asking people to make the commitment that Jesus was asking people to make.

What does it mean that we ought to hate our family members to follow him? This is such a strong statement and sounds so counter to his message of loving God and loving others. How should we hate our father, mother, wife, and children when the Bible also teaches us to honor our father and mother, to love our wives as Christ loves the church, and calls our children an inheritance from the Lord?

The key to understanding this passage and how it relates to counting the cost is to understand the culture. The study of anthropology is the study of humanity. Cultural anthropology is a subcategory which is the study of human cultures. These cultures are broken up into a few categories. There are guilt societies that focus on law and punishment, which is us. We focus on asking the question, “Is my behavior fair or unfair?” There are shame cultures that are more common in the eastern part of the world that ask the question, “How will people look at me if I do this?” Then there are fear cultures that seek physical dominance and ask the question, “Will someone hurt me if I do this?”

The biblical world is operating in an honor/shame culture. It lends to a culture that is more communal and less individualistic. What one person does impacts the family, the family name, and so on. Family and family obligations were a big deal. So when Jesus is telling people to hate their parents, wives, and children, he is not telling them to adopt a negative attitude between them. He is telling them that if their relationship with those family members becomes a hindrance to following Jesus, they should choose Jesus over the relationship.

What this doesn’t mean though is that you cut ties with your family members and never speak to them so you can follow Jesus. It might just mean that those same family members are your mission field. It doesn’t mean you file for divorce or disown your kids. Rather, it means that you follow Christ against the wishes of those other people. That’s the mom who gets her kids up for church every Sunday even though her husband at home tells her she’s stupid for believing in this stuff. That’s the guy who moves away from his hometown in pursuit of God’s vision against his parent’s wishes. It is the parent who makes sure their child is involved in church even if the child doesn’t want to be there. The relationship one has with Christ becomes the driving factor for everything they do even in the face of opposition from their own family members.

Jesus then says that anyone who does not carry his own cross and come after him can’t be a disciple. What happened next was not a bunch of people going to the Roman crucifixion yard or wherever they stored all the crosses and started carrying them around wherever they went. Our commitment to Christ should be such that if it cost us our lives we would be willing to pay. But this is also a saying that describes an immense burden. Crosses were heavy. They were hard to carry. So in some sense the responsibility of following Christ is heavy. We need to weigh that in our decision to follow him. He illustrates this in two ways.

The first example is that of one who builds a tower without first calculating the cost. Those of you who have ever built something appreciate this. It would be a disgrace to you if you planned to build a house and didn’t calculate the cost of seeing that project through to completion. Could you imagine someone builds a home in Three Rivers but they are only able to get it half finished? What would you think if you drove by an unfinished house and a U-haul truck was parked outside and the family was moving furniture into a house with no roof over one side? They would be a laughing stock. If that was you, you would have no respect in town.

The second example is that of kings going to war. Who would go to war without weighing the cost of going up against an opposing force that outnumbers him two to one? There is a doctrine of military ethics called just war theory. It lists several criteria for the things which ought to be considered before going into war. Here they are:

Principles for Justice of Going to War:

Just Cause: The war must be fought for a reason that is justified and carries sufficient moral weight, such as to put right a wrong or defend against aggression. 

Legitimate Authority: The war must be lawfully declared by a legitimate authority, such as a state or ruler.

Right Intention: The intention behind the war must be good, with the aim of restoring peace and justice after the war is over.

Last Resort: All other peaceful means of resolving the conflict must have been exhausted. 

Reasonable Chance of Success: There must be a reasonable prospect of success in achieving the war aims.

Proportionality: The benefits of war must outweigh the costs, and the force used should be proportionate to the end sought.

The last two are derived more specifically from what Jesus is talking about here. If a sovereign entity is going to involve itself in armed combat against another, these principles should be followed. Jesus uses these rhetorical questions to lead his audience so they will arrive to a logical conclusion. Who goes to war without considering whether they can actually win? Who builds a tower without first counting the cost to see if he can afford to finish it? The answer is nobody in their right mind.

So it is with a decision to follow Christ. There is no such thing as a part-time Christian. Jesus does not make room for people who have one foot in and one foot out. I’m not saying someone can’t be saved if they are not actively pursuing Jesus. I am saying that if you are not all in for Jesus and daily surrendering your life to his authority you are living in disobedience. The trouble I have today is so many people love the idea of Jesus being their Savior, but they are not on board with Jesus moving in and rebuilding the house.

Home renovation shows are very popular these days but in every home renovation there is what is known as demo day. Demo is short for demolition. You have to get in there and tear out the stuff that’s not working so you can begin building the vision of a new home. That’s what Jesus wants to do with our lives. We meet him and he says, “Hey, your life is like a dilapidated house. The structures are weak, there is mold in the walls, the paint is peeling off the walls, but I can come in and I can get it fixed up for you...but you have to surrender the house. I’ll be your landlord...and your roommate. Are you in?” You don’t get the house without Jesus moving in. So many want the house but they don’t want Jesus to move in and change stuff. But that’s not how it works.

Jesus wants you to be all in, and all in requires surrender.

It is all in or all out with Jesus. Anything less than all in is disobedience. Anything less than all in means that there are areas of your life where you are comfortable involving Jesus in and there are areas where you leave Jesus out, which means that not everything has come under the Lordship of Christ and that is his desire, because when it does, we begin to see more clearly his design for our lives and we realize his plan is perfect, even when it involves hardship.

The tension behind this idea is about a wrestling match with God as to who is going to be in control. Is it you or him? Nobody does this perfectly, but I can assure you that when it comes to Jesse Hammonds, I am compelled to confront my sin daily, confess it, and submit myself to the leadership of the one who rose from the dead and sits today at the right hand of God.

Luke 14:33 NASB95

“So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

This doesn’t mean that every follower of Jesus has to take a vow of poverty and renounce all material possessions. God uses amazing people who have been blessed with tremendous wealth to do unbelievable things. But if material wealth has become an idol for you, then you need to shift your perspective. If you are not materially rich, but there is something in your life you possess that keeps you from pursuing God’s design for your life, to really follow Jesus you need to submit that to the Lordship of Jesus. We surrender control over to the Lord the things in which he already owns, we step aside as owner and put on the name tag that says manager.

So as we close today, I want to ask you, are you all in for Jesus, or is there an area in your life that you need to surrender control of to him? Let the Holy Spirit speak and you do business with God. If he is calling something out in you, listen and count the cost of surrendering that to Jesus today.