Luke 14.25-35

Welcome back to Luke! We’ve taken a break from the gospel of Luke since early December, but we’re back, and we’re going to jump right back in where we started.

Welcome back to Luke! We’ve taken a break from the gospel of Luke since early December, but we’re back, and we’re going to jump right back in where we started.

So if you’re just now joining us, here’s where we are. The gospel of Luke tells the story of the Son of God, Jesus, who became a man in 1st-century Israel, where he lived and ministered. We’ve seen the circumstances surrounding Jesus’s birth, and a small bit of his childhood.

When Jesus grows up, he begins his ministry—he travels around healing people and teaching them about the kingdom of God, telling them that the kingdom of God is now here, in him. He calls twelve men to be his disciples, and they follow him around, learning from him, and actually go out on some occasions, ministering on his behalf.

Then in chapter 9, we see things make a bit of a shift. Jesus is transfigured on a mountain—he shows himself to three of his disciples in all of his glory; it’s here that our suspicions are confirmed: this is not just a good teacher, or a talented healer. This man is more than a man.

And when he comes down off the mountain, he “sets his face toward Jerusalem” (9.53). He begins the road that will lead him, ultimately, to his death.

But he takes his time getting there—on his way, he does what he always does: he stops to heal people and to teach them.

And last time, we saw him at a dinner party filled with Pharisees (the guys who hated Jesus more than anyone). At this dinner party, he gave them a series of teachings on pride and humility—to treat others the way you’d treat your own children; to never seek the best seat at the table; to serve those who can do nothing for you; and to remember that ultimately, none of this is about you at all, but about God himself.

The context of today’s text is a little different. Although it immediately follows the dinner party, Luke says that great crowds are accompanying Jesus—so think of this as a fade cut in a movie. Jesus is sitting at dinner, he finishes his teaching, then it fades away and picks up again on Jesus surrounded by the crowds.

The crowds are not like the Pharisees. There are certainly some Pharisees in the crowd (there always were), but there were also many people in the crowd who are following Jesus because they genuinely want to be his disciples.

One can easily imagine Jesus surrounded by the crowds, spotting a Pharisee or someone else who is trying to trap him, and saying to that person, “Yeah, you shouldn’t be here.”

But what Jesus is going to say to the crowd at this point is startling. Essentially, he’s going to say just that: You shouldn’t be here. No matter how well-intentioned some people may be, some of them should not be there, because being a disciple of Christ is not a game. It’s not a pleasant way to spend a summer. There are conditions to being Jesus’s disciple.

And the bar for these conditions is unbelievably high.

So that’s where we’re going. Jesus is going to give us three conditions we must meet if we want to be his disciples.

Condition 1: You must love him more than the most important people in your life (v. 26).

25 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.”

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.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.

This is a reality that makes a lot of people really uncomfortable. We talk about the grace of God in Christ being totally free. And that is true: it is God who saves us, from beginning to end. We can’t work to obtain it, we can do nothing to contribute to it.

But God saves us so that a series of very important things might happen in us, and he intends for those things to happen. The first thing that happens is that God opens our eyes to make us see the gospel as the truth, and not fiction.

He opens our eyes to such an extent that we can no longer ignore the gospel, but are compelled to accept it.

And he opens our eyes, not just to the truth of the gospel, but to the beauty of the gospel. He opens our eyes, not just to the reality of who he is, but to why he is wonderful. He opens our eyes to see him as marvelous, and when we see something as wonderful, we think it’s wonderful.

Think of the Grand Canyon. How many people here have been to the Grand Canyon? You can hear about the Grand Canyon as much as you want. You can know how it was formed, and even see pictures of what it looks like. You can hear it spoken of so much that you might assume the real thing couldn’t be that good.

But when you actually go there, and see the real thing with your own eyes (and not through an Instagram filter), it never disappoints. When you see something as wonderful, you feel it as wonderful.

When you see something as beautiful, you admire its beauty.

When you see something as lovely, you love it.

That’s what happens when God saves us. He opens our eyes to see not only his existence, but his beauty, his goodness, his worth.

To say it another way—to know God is to love God.

Now, if you’ve been in this church for a while, this isn’t news to you. We talk about this all the time. And many of us—everyone here, I hope—has experienced at least some semblance of this. We know what it is to be changed by God, and to love God for what he’s done for us.

But let’s be honest: that love is something we struggle to maintain. That love is something that gets easily snuffed out. It can be because of bad things or good things, but our love for God is something that all of us, at some point or another, struggle to keep up.

And despite our best intentions, the reality of that struggle makes us settle. It makes us settle into the idea that our love for God is something that will always be at this level—that this might be as good as it gets.

What Jesus says here should dissuade us of that. Jesus never says the things he says to discourage us—he says what he says to set our sights higher, to help us see that this is not as good as it gets.

“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.”

This phrase he uses is an idiomatic expression—obviously, as we see elsewhere in the Bible, God doesn’t want us to literally hate our families. It’s an expression which means “to love less than.” This is what he’s getting at: Jesus intends for us to love him more than our parents. More than our husbands. Our wives. Our brothers and sisters. Our kids. Our __________.

In the end, who goes in that blank doesn’t matter—he’s talking about those people who are most important to us.

Everyone has someone who is important to them.

Take what you feel for that person, whoever it is—take your affection for them, your devotion to them, your commitment to them… Your love for Jesus is meant to be greater than all that.

And Jesus goes even further—he says not only should we love him more than the most important people to us; we should love him more than even our own lives. And that is where he is going next.

Condition 2: You must be ready to lose everything (v. 27-33).

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.

Let’s work backwards here. Verses 27 and 33 are like bookends to everything that comes in between. They’re two ways of stating the same thing.

In verse 33, he says that any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

This is similar to what he said before about hating your family—he doesn’t necessarily mean that every Christian should reject his family and get rid of all earthly possessions and go live like monks in a convent; we see this abundantly in other teachings he gives on how to use the material possessions we have.

He’s saying we should be ready to give all of that up if necessary.

I hope you see that Jesus is being abundantly fair to his followers here. He wants every one of them to know exactly what they’re getting into.

And that’s what the parables in v. 28-32 are getting at. In the first one (v. 28-30), he talks about someone building a tower. This person—if he’s smart—will count up how much it will cost to build it (how much material he’ll need, how much manpower he’ll need) and make sure he has what he needs to make it happen. Because if he doesn’t, he’ll get started and not be able to finish, and everyone will know.

The second parable (v. 31-32) is of a king about to go to war, who sits down to examine his troops and make sure he can win, before he goes out. If he can’t win, he’s better off surrendering, or compromising for peace, rather than see his entire army wiped out.

I was trying to think of a modern example of this same kind of parable (if Jesus were teaching today, what illustrations would he use?), and the best one that I could think of is what happened at the Fyre Festival last year. There are two documentaries that were just released about it on Netflix and Hulu about this. Billy McFarland and Ja Rule wanted to host an extremely exclusive music festival in the Bahamas—they hyped it up over social media for months beforehand, promoting the glamour of the ultra-luxurious accommodations, the quality of the service, not to mention the festival itself.

Did you hear what happened at the Fyre Festival last year? There are two documentaries that were just released about it on Netflix and Hulu. Billy McFarland and Ja Rule wanted to host an extremely exclusive music festival in the Bahamas—they hyped it up over social media for months beforehand, hyping the glamour of the accommodations, the quality of the service. It was to be the festival for the super-rich, the most exclusive festival ever.

But when the planes landed in the Bahamas, they found tents that were literally disaster relief tents with dirt floors; they were fed sandwiches which were just two slices of white bread with two pieces of American cheese inside; there was trash everywhere; in the end, the festival never happened. Everyone just returned home. Now, the organizers are not only ridiculed for the fiasco, but actually facing jail time for their mismanagement.

That’s what he’s talking about: better not to start than to start and not finish. People hear that if they come to Jesus, all their dreams will come true, everything will go well for them, and their lives will generally be better. Then they start following Christ, and they realize that not only are their lives not getting better—by human standards anyway, they’re getting worse. Their friends and family are cutting them off. They find themselves adhering to unrealistic standards of holiness, because they were told that God’s faithfulness is contigent on their perfect faith and obedience. They start living the Christian life, and they leave it because they feel lied to.

Jesus is far more honest. He’s telling these people that they might well lose everything if they follow him, and they need to be okay with that.

And in the other bookend (v. 27), we see just how far the “everything” they might lose extends.

V. 27:

27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

This was a shocking thing to say, and it should still be.

People wear crosses around their necks, and they wear them with no shame, because little gold crosses are pretty.

If they really thought what they were wearing, they may be a little more reticent.

Imagine if, instead of a cross, it was a little gold guillotine. If you saw someone walking around with a guillotine around her neck, you’d wonder if there wasn’t something twisted about this person—because a guillotine isn’t fashionable. It’s an instrument of execution.

And even a guillotine is a far more humane instrument of execution than the cross; at least the guillotine was instantaneous. Death on a cross took hours. You died of very slow suffocation on a cross. Crucifixion was such a horrendous way to die that Roman citizens wouldn’t even mention a cross in polite company.

Jesus shocks them so they can feel just how far discipleship will take them. They may not literally be crucified like he was; but Jesus’s disciples must give him everything—not just all their stuff, but everything they are. Their ideas. Their opinions. Their beliefs. Their wills.

Very often Christians take this verse to mean we must be willing to die. And that’s true. But it’s much bigger than that.

Jesus is not trying to create martyrs; he’s trying to create disciples who are totally free to do the will of God. Jesus’s disciples must be okay with the idea that they are not the ones in control of their lives. They have to accept the idea that God may call them to things they don’t initially want to do. They have to accept the possibility that their dreams might not be fulfilled. They might have to accept not having a family, not being healed. They might have to accept years of painful labor which bears zero fruit during their life, before dying and leaving no one who will remember them.

He wants us to know how hard this will be, brothers and sisters. It’s hard to realize it, when we’re young and able to live in the city; it’s hard in the context of Parisian life to see just how quickly it can all unravel.

But it can—and Jesus never promises that it won’t for his children. On the contrary—he says they should be ready to see it all unravel for the sake of the gospel.

Grace is free; the gift of salvation in Christ is absolutely, glorious free.

But discipleship—following Jesus wherever he would lead us—is the most costly endeavor imaginable.

The disciple of Christ must be ready to lose the people he loves the most, the things that belong to him, and even everything he is, to follow him.

Condition 3: You must persevere in usefulness (v. 34-35).

Lastly, Jesus adds this slightly perplexing conclusion:

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.”

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

I’ve never encountered salt that has lost its taste, but I can imagine it. You take salt with no taste and add it to your mashed potatoes, and what do you get? Mashed potatoes with sand.

Unsalty salt is of no use, he says. It does nothing for your food; it does nothing for the ground; it doesn’t even serve to fertilize. And once it’s lost its flavor, nothing can bring it back.

It’s another picture of that guy who tried to build a tower without considering how much it would cost him. He’s left with an empty foundation with nothing on it; the only use he has left is to be a mockery of the Christian faith.

He’s saying that we must not be like that—Jesus’s disciples are not called to be useless. They are called to be of use, and to persevere in that usefulness. Don’t lose your flavor; don’t lose your utility. Keep going, no matter what you lose.

How do we do it?

Now the question is, How on earth do we do this?

We understand what it might mean to persevere in good works; to persevere in service; to persevere in doing things. But how do we make sure that the things we do are of any practical use? How do we make sure we do them in such a way that the “flavor” of our works is maintained?

He’s already told us—we love him more than the people who are most important to us, more than the things we own, more than even our own selves.

But that’s a conundrum too, because who can decide to do that? Who can manufacture love? Who can make themselves love someone?

The answer, of course, is no one. We can’t do this. We can’t make ourselves love God more than anything! As the saying goes, the heart wants what the heart wants.

This happens over and over again in the gospels: Jesus calls us to do things that we cannot do ourselves, that are out of our power as long as we are sinners living on this broken earth.

So what do we do?

You may wonder why we so often come back to the gospel—why every week, I essentially preach the same sermon, over and over. We do this because the gospel is the only way to make sense of the Bible’s impossible commandments.

Wrong. Here’s where the gospel comes into play.

The reason

Jesus calls us to impossible things to show us why he’s a worthy Savior: he fulfilled these impossible commandments for us. He did all that we can’t do, and he did it for two reasons: to fill the gap between what we are and what we should be; and to give us confidence that because he has done these things, he can lead us into them. Because he lived the life we should have lived, and came out on the other side of the resurrection vindicated and pure, he is able to bring us where he is.

Case in point—he gives us conditions to be his disciples, conditions we couldn’t possibly hope to meet ourselves.

Condition 1: You must love him more than the most important people in your life.

Jesus did this. He loved the Father more than his own family.

Matthew 12.46-50:

46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

At that point in time, what was most important to him was ministering to the people who had gathered to him, because that was his Father’s will at that time. In Jesus’s list of priorities, his Father’s will came first, and those most important to him came second.

Condition 2: You must be ready to lose everything.

Jesus did this. He literally took up his cross, and surrendered his own will over to his Father’s; he gave himself to accomplish his Father’s will.

:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

And , when he is praying in the garden before his death:

Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Jesus’s own life was always subservient to the will of his Father. He literally died on the cross, because he knew what God was accomplishing through him.

Condition 3: You must persevere in usefulness.

Jesus did this too. We sometimes make the mistake of assuming that because Jesus is God, he doesn’t understand what it’s like to have to persevere—that perseverance is kind of automatic for him.

While being God certainly enabled him to persevere, Jesus still had to do it. And he did.

:

8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him...

Jesus always knew how he could best be "salt” in any given situation, and he did it. Jesus’s obedience to God’s will, Jesus’s perseverance, was assured, but it was not automatic. He did what we could not do.

Jesus fulfilled the conditions of discipleship, and he did it for two reasons, which I mentioned earlier. Jesus fulfilled these conditions for us—when he died to take our sins and gave us his perfect life, Jesus’s obedience became our obedience. He filled the gap between what we are and what we are called to be. And he fulfilled these conditions so that at any given moment, we can know he has been there, so he can bring us where he is now.

Because he loved God more than his loved ones, he can through his Spirit help us love him that much.

Because he was ready to lose everything for the joy that was set before him (), he is able to show us the joy set before us, that we may be willing and able to let go of what we want in favor of what God wants for us.

And because he persevered until the cross, he is able to take us by the hand and walk with us, giving us what we need to persevere until the end.

Jesus did what we couldn’t do; so God has given us his perfect obedience, and the assurance that in Christ, we can follow in Christ’s footsteps.

Now, there is one more question we have to answer before we finish, a question I’m sure not many of you would admit to asking, but that some of you must be asking anyway, especially if you are a new believer or if you’re not a Christian. And the question is this:

to fill the gap between what we are and what we should be; and to give us confidence that because he has done these things, he can lead us into them. Because he lived the life we should have lived, and came out on the other side of the resurrection vindicated and pure, he is able to bring us where he is.

HOW IS THIS GOOD NEWS?

If you’re slightly mystified by that question, you’re probably too close. Take a step back and look at it objectively. Seen from a certain perspective, it sounds as if the conditions Jesus gives for following him basically all amount to this: “To be my disciple, you must be willing to be absolutely miserable for the rest of your life.”

How can that possibly be good news?

If you remember our last text (—it was two months ago, so it’s okay if you don’t remember), Jesus describes heaven for us, and the image he uses is that of a great banquet, to which he has invited people of all backgrounds and nations (those from “the highways and hedges,” v. 23), those whom other people would just as soon cast off (“the poor and crippled and blind and lame,” v. 21). He goes and invites all of these people to come to this incredible feast he is preparing—his house is filled to the brim with people enjoying the feast he has prepared.

People have a lot of questions about heaven, and although the Bible does give a lot of answers, there are still many questions left unanswered. But one thing is clear: it won’t be a fast-food heaven. It won’t be the paradisical equivalent of going through the McDonald’s Drive-Thru.

It’s going to be a feast.

The conditions Jesus gives here point us to good news when we remember where we are headed. Yes, sometimes life will be hard, and God will call us to go places we may feel reluctant to go, and do things we may feel reluctant to do.

It sounds like the conditions for discipleship are: “You must be willing to be miserable!”

But his disciples are happy to do it, because they know him. They know how much he suffered to give them eternal life in a renewed world without pain. They know that at the end of this road, they will get to see the One they love, the One who created them, and they will get to see that love increase exponentially, and without end. They know that at the end of this road, they will get to enjoy their Savior forever, and feast on never-ending pleasures at his right hand (cf. ).

Because we get to know the love of the One who created us.

All of these conditions for following Jesus are good news for his disciples, because it means they get to follow Jesus. And when they know who he is, and what he is like, and all they have in him, there is nowhere they’d rather be.

for his disciples, because they get to follow Jesus. And when they know who he is, and what he is like, and all they have in him, there is nowhere they’d rather be.

Because we get to enjoy him forever.

So pray, brothers and sisters. Pray that God would help you persevere in usefulness by obeying his commands. Pray that God would help you willingly let go of your own desires, your own ideas of your so-called self-determining free will, and take up your cross and follow him.

This is only good news if you know what you’re working toward.

And above all—the thing that will make all the rest possible—pray that God would help you love Jesus more than anyone or anything else.

The conditions Jesus gives for his disciples are good news because they are rooted in love. Imagine loving someone more than your children! How wonderful must that person be, to be greater even than the love you have for your kids! How worthwhile must he be!

Under application:

When Jack was born, Loanne and I saw our hearts grow (like the Grinch). Looking at him could actually produce a physical reaction in us, could move corners of our hearts we didn’t even know were there.

Imagine loving someone more than your children! How WONDERFUL must that person be, to be greater even than the love you have for your kids! How worthwhile must he be!

When Jack was born, we saw our hearts grow, like the Grinch. Looking at him could actually produce a physical reaction in us, could move corners of our hearts we didn’t even know were there. Then Loanne got pregnant with Zadie, and I honestly didn’t think there was room enough in my heart for any more love. But then she came, and as it turns out, there was. There was more room than I suspected in my heart, for more love than I imagined I could feel.

Then Loanne got pregnant with Zadie, and I honestly didn’t think there was room enough in my heart for any more love. But then she came, and as it turns out, there was. There was more room than I suspected in my heart, for more love than I imagined I could feel.

Here’s my point. It often seems impossible to us that we could love Jesus this much. But the heart is an extremely malleable thing; there is always room to love someone more than we do today. The love Jesus calls us to have for him is possible.

So pray for to see him as he is, and to love him for who he is. Pray God would expand your heart, and direct that expanded capacity towards a fierce love for your Savior, which will drive you to follow him. Because despite whatever we may lose, as the old song says, “There’s no better place on earth than the road that leads to heaven,” because on that road, we get to walk with Jesus.

What does this have to do with the previous text (14.1-24)? The subject there was pride and humility.

The pride of those who don’t count the cost: the assumption that “I can do this.” They’re so sure of themselves that they don’t even consider that they’re not up to this task.

ESVN: “If the conditions of discipleship (vv. 26–27, 33) are not kept, the disciples likewise will become less than worthless (cf. ).” If you’re not this kind of disciple, you’re not a disciple at all.

Luke 14.25-35

Salt Without Taste Is Worthless

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,

Condition 1:

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.

Condition 2:

27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Illustrations: This is going to be really hard for you.

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.

Condition 3:

33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

I might die to myself, but DON’T TAKE MY STUFF!

How insane it is that people find this condition as difficult as the last one! Materialism wasn’t born in the 20th century.

The Result of Unmet Conditions

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.”

ESVN:

Crucifixion is a shocking metaphor for discipleship. A disciple must deny himself (die to self-will), take up his cross (embrace God’s will, no matter the cost), and follow Christ.

Crucifixion is a shocking metaphor for discipleship. A disciple must deny himself (die to self-will), take up his cross (embrace God’s will, no matter the cost), and follow Christ.

Crossway Bibles, 2008. The ESV Study Bible, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Following the first major prediction of his death and resurrection (v. 31), Jesus instructs in discipleship all those who would come after me. The goal of self-denial (cf. 14:30, 31, 72) and taking up one’s cross is not pathological self-abasement or a martyr complex but being free to follow the Messiah (1:18; 2:13). Self-denial means letting go of self-determination (cf. ) and replacing it with obedience to and dependence on the Messiah.