2020 Jesus Meant It

Introduction

-{Luke 14}

-After all the election drama, the important question for Christians is not what do we do in light of the elections, but what are we going to do to live in light of the Word of God? The elections do not change the Word of God one bit. And I fear that we are more concerned about politics than we are about being faithful to what Jesus has spoken and commanded.

~And I think that part of it might be that we don’t actually believe that Jesus meant what He said. Now, yes, Jesus did at times use hyperbole (which is exaggeration) and other rhetorical and literary tools, but there are some things that taken in context we have a tendency to willingly overlook because they sound too radical to us.

~But Jesus could be very radical and revolutionary in comparison to the world’s ways. So, we cannot just merely dismiss some of the things that He said.

-It makes me think of the late, great baseball player Yogi Berra. His quirky sayings and use of words became legendary.

~(He supposedly is the one that coined the phrases) “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” {and} “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

~He said: “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore;” and so many other weird sayings.

-But because of the things he said and the way he said them, there seemed to be so many other saying that were attributed to him that he didn’t think he actually said, he then came out with this gem:

“I really didn’t say everything I said”

-But, unlike Yogi Berra, Jesus did say what He said, and He meant what He said. You would think that would be self-explanatory, but we so often take the hard, radical things that Jesus said and we try to water them down so we can be comfy in sinful, self-centered, materialistic lives—we try to explain away what Jesus said so we don’t have to change and conform to His demands—we don’t want our Christianity be hard, we want a nice American Jesus who allows us to do what we want when we want it without restraint.

-but if we do that, how can we call ourselves His followers—Jesus said what He meant and He meant what said.

-Today, I want to look at Jesus’ words and saying and demands, and I want us to realize that He meant what said, and I see that we have 2 options: we conform our lives to His demands, or we stop calling ourselves His followers

Luke 14:25–27 ESV

Now great crowds accompanied 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 bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:28–29 ESV

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? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,

Luke 14:30–31 ESV

saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 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?

Luke 14:32–33 ESV

And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

-I first want to first place this passage in its context: Jesus sees some of the populace following after Him, but He knows that most are following Him for the wrong motivations or reasons—they followed Him because they saw miracles… wanted healing…thought could get something from Him, and He turns around and gives them the hard truth of what it truly means to follow Him—and what Jesus tells them about being a follower is not a requirement to become an apostle or super holy saint, but what it genuinely means to be a disciple

-Christianity is more than walking an aisle, saying prayer, getting dunked and going to church—it is a complete life change and commitment. We think it’s radical, but the 1st century church saw it as the norm. And what the world needs now more than ever is this Christianity that they and we consider radical

-I see how my life falls short, so I hope we all have some evaluation time and have some encouragement to be radical in the world’s eyes, which would be a normal follower in Christ’s eyes.

-I want to quickly look at three points of discipleship that Jesus said and meant:

I) Radical Devotion

-v. 26—really mean that? Yes, He did, within its context, meaning that other people or things were not to have the highest priority; rather, He is

~Some might say, “but Jesus always tells us to love, not hate (unless evil)”—What Jesus is saying may be clarified more:

“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.” (Matthew 10:37 ESV)

~1 author summarized it for us: Jesus was calling His disciples to cultivate such a devotion to Him that their attachment to everything else—including their own lives—would seem like hatred by comparison

-There is nothing to be more important in our lives; there is no one we are to be more loyal to or committed to than Jesus (yes, that includes our families and our closest friends

-As David Platt wrote: Plainly put, a relationship with Jesus requires total, superior, and exclusive devotion

~You can see this in another interaction with people who wanted to be His disciples in Luke 9. We don’t have time to read it, but you know the story—you want to be my disciple, be willing to be homeless, don’t go to your dad’s funeral, don’t say goodbye to your family because JESUS is to be your top priority

-You claim to have a commitment, the question is do you live out that commitment?

-Imagine when my wife and were about to be married, that I said to her: You know what, I’ll marry you, but here are my conditions: I’m only going to spend time with you Sunday mornings, and maybe Sunday nights and Wednesdays; don’t ever bother me or demand any more from me; you also better understand that I love my football team more than you…baseball…and I’d rather play any sport than spend time with you----you have no rights or demands to my time, all my money is mine, yet whenever I need you I fully expect you to fulfill my every wish and demand and I expect you to be quick about it

-what in the world would my wife do? She’d say, “Hit road Jack…”----yet that’s exactly what we do to Jesus. And Jesus says if we treat Him like that, we cannot be His disciples----you say Jesus is very demanding, well yeah He is God…died for us; I think Jesus could pretty much demand whatever wanted , and no, we don’t get a say in it because this is not a democracy

-But the question might be asked how we show this Radical Devotion—I think the simplest answer is given by Jesus when He says that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments.

~But in order to keep His commandments we need to know His commandments as they are found in the Word

~Jesus told the religious leaders that they search the Scripture for eternal life, but they testify of Jesus Himself

-We come up with lots of excuses not to get into the Word to know how to show our radical devotion, but they all boil down to selfishness or laziness. There’s 1440 minutes in a day, and if we can’t even give Him 15 of those minutes, there is a problem, especially when we give hours to TV and social media. We put all sorts of different things before Jesus

-but funny thing is, when Jesus has rightful place in our devotions, we actually have an increase of love for family, friends and neighbors—but it begins with a radical devotion to Christ

II) Radical Sacrifice

-v. 27—bearing your cross does not have to do with dealing with inconveniences of life or our sufferings because of our sin, which is often how we use the term

~Oh, my boss is such a pain, but I guess that’s the cross I have to bear. Or, my knee hurts, but I guess that’s the cross I have to bear

~No, that’s called life. That has nothing to do with the cross.

-the cross is a means of execution/death—We, therefore, no longer have claim to have any rights to our lives, because dead people make no demands…claims…decisions —dead people can’t do much, and that’s the point—we die, so Christ can live through us

-1 author described it: This mandates a rejection of a life based on self-interest and self-fulfillment. Instead a disciple is to be one who seeks to fulfill the will and the teachings of Christ.

-This means that Jesus has full say and authority over our lives, even if it leads to our death----if we suffer, then we share in Christ’s sufferings; if we are persecuted, we get a taste of what He went thru; if we die, we die for Christ—but when we bear our cross, anything that has do with self no longer exists—if we are still exerting our selfishness, our self-centeredness, our self-determination, then we aren’t bearing the cross==self is still alive and well

~but to be His disciple, our lives are not our own anymore—our life is sacrificed on His behalf

~Paul reminds us:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20 ESV)

~Jesus owns you, so your life belongs to Him, now. Your life no longer belongs to you

-This made me think of the military. I have never been in the military, but my dad was a 26-year Marine, being the highest NCO as Sgt Major. He retired when I was real young, so I never saw him in action (so to speak). But knowing how my dad was and the personality that he had, I can kind of imagine him dealing with the new recruits came in.

~When you join military, they own you. But what if one of those new recruits came in and started making all sorts of demands on my dad, the Sgt Major. What if the recruit would say that he would not get up for reveille (wakeup), and that he wasn’t going to shine his own shoes or press his own uniform, but instead he wanted my dad to find someone do it for him.

~I can picture in my mind’s eye my dad’s face turning so many different colors of red, telling that boy he’s lost his mind, and maybe top it all off with “I’m not your mother”

-How silly is that illustration—a recruit thinking that he can shape the demands of the military

~and yet here we think we come to Jesus and do same thing—here we are, telling Jesus the terms and conditions by which we will follow Him—sure I’ll follow You Jesus, but I determine what do with my life

-But that’s not how it works. When you come to Jesus, Jesus owns you—you are no longer your own----Jesus said unless you carry your cross, unless you die to self, you cannot be His disciple----there can only be one master, it’s either you or Him, let me ask you, who’s it going to be?

-And so, our lives are not our own, so we can say as Paul said: But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. (Acts 20:24 ESV)

-There are people out there so given over to Jesus, truly bearing their cross, not counting their life as anything and are literally dying for Jesus, and we won’t even pick up a Bible to learn from Him…and we won’t sacrifice time to minister to others…SELFISH—to be His disciple means Radical Sacrifice, death to self

III) Radical Abandonment

-v. 33—renounce=forsake, surrender all claim to, give up—before we talked about dying to self, here Jesus is saying give up everything else if He so calls you to

-Not only are you His, but everything that is yours is His, and when you are His disciple, He can tell you to do with it whatever wants to tell you…

-If He wants you give it up, you give it up; or if He says give it away, you give it away—all these things go hand in hand—if you are so devoted to Christ, He is your life and your everything, so it shouldn’t be problematic for you to abandon anything of this earth if it means obedience and loyalty to Jesus

-You would do anything and give up anything for the person you are committed to----when you have kids, you learn to do without so that they can have because you are committed to them and love them----why would it be any different with Jesus?

-If Jesus told you pack up and head to Africa, when you are truly devoted and understand the sacrificial life, you go----or if God leads you to give something to that poor family down the street, because you are devoted to Him, you do it—earthly things no longer have the same meaning to us, because we have them in proper perspective in comparison to heavenly things

-is it easy? No; but if you truly want to be His follower, you do it anyway knowing He’ll take care of you—you abandon all because you are committed to Him

-But we Americans have lots of stuff and we love our stuff and don’t want to give up our stuff, so we try and water it down this—Jesus told the rich young ruler to give away everything and follow Him. That is not a prescription for us, but it is a challenge that what Jesus says to do we do, what Jesus says to give up we give up, what Jesus says to offer, we offer

-The riches of the rich young ruler were a stumbling block to Radical Devotion, so Jesus demanded Radical Abandonment—every ounce of our American blood is going fight this, but you cannot get away from the principle

-We can’t hold on to our material possessions so tightly that can’t reach out to Jesus, eventually we have to abandon one or the other----there’s a scene at end of Indiana Jones and Last Crusade where they’re going after Holy Grail. The Grail fell into a ravine during earthquake. This girl is about to fall in, and Indiana Jones is holding onto one of her hands, but she is reaching for the Grail with other. Indiana tells her to give her other hand so he can pull her up, but she doesn’t stop reaching for the treasure, and eventually slips and falls to her demise.

-How many of us think our earthly American Dream treasures are more important than Jesus, such that we reach and reach, but eventually fall to our own demise----Jesus calls us to Radical Abandonment, give up all for His sake, without which we cannot be His disciples

CONCLUSION

-Jesus set the bar high because He is worthy of whole-hearted disciples who will follow Him in what would now be considered radical ways

-In the middle of this passage Jesus gives some stories about counting the cost for truly following Him, because there is a cost—yes, it means pure devotion…sacrifice…no more business as usual…abandoning a lot—but like the king seeing what he was up against would send a delegation to make peace, so Jesus calls us to count the cost, seeing that losing some rights and desires and possession for a short time on earth is better than losing everything for all eternity—truly, what profit is there gaining the whole world while losing your soul?

-Yes, Jesus makes demands of his people, and we often see in Scripture that when He did, people would leave from following Him. He only had about 120 real followers at the time of His death and resurrection, but the thing is, they were real disciples—totally devoted, totally sacrificial, giving total abandonment to Christ

-We’re deluding ourselves if we think that we can radically pursue the American Dream and radically pursue Jesus Christ.

-But we have choice today, as put by David Platt: You and I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole, enjoying success based on the standards defined by the culture around us. Or we can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and dare to ask what the consequences might be if we really believed Him and really obeyed Him.

-with that in mind, as I close I join Moses in saying: Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live