To Live is Christ
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Introduction
Introduction
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
“And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
I am eager this morning to press on this subject with an earnest desire and prayer that God would carry us even deeper in our understanding of this text and our love for God.
Now, you might wonder why we are back on the same passage as last week. Let me give you 5 reasons for why I want to do another sermon on this subject,
My greatest fear for the church when studying a subject such as this, is the danger of an intellectual assent where you see what’s being said and move on thinking you’ve understood it when you’ve not realised the full (or a satisfying) measure of what is being said.
Imagine standing before the Saviour and you saying, “Lord I believe in You”, and He says, “You’re not worthy of me. You love your dad and mom more than me”.
“You put your hand to the plough and you turned back. You’re not worthy”
If you, like me, cleave tightly to grace as the only hope of our salvation, then this verse should shake us. We have to harmonise it with the doctrine of salvation as we’ve learnt and understood it for so long.
I want to focus in on the phrase ‘worthy of me’ and spend a greater length of time pressing ourselves to think about what that means.
We know that we are not saved because we are worthy. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8).
Yet we are called to be worthy. How?
In order to have a more thorough understanding of the biblical application of this text in our lives.
It is one thing to understand these things in a superficial way, and completely another to have these truths saturate our way of life.
Before last week, how many of you have ever wondered if you were living lives worthy of Christ? In a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called (Ephesians 4:1)
To show what happens if you press your head against a text and stay there longer than usual, how you will see more from the text than if you skimmed off the surface.
The jarring reality of this text speaks directly to the greatest spiritual imbalance in all our lives. The imbalance between grace and works.
This may be news to some of you, but we all are imbalanced one way or another in this subject as I hope to show you in this sermon.
Exegesis - The two poles
Exegesis - The two poles
The foundation of the Gospel is this,
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
One of the central reforms of the Protestant Reformation was the reclamation of the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone. That all people that are saved are saved by the salvific work of the Holy Spirit who illumines the mind of the fallen human soul to see the magnificent glory of Christ through the cross.
Men are not saved by works. Period. They are saved by grace through faith, and not of works.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
as it is written,
“There is none righteous, not even one;
There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
The Bible is very clear about the fallen state of mankind. There is nothing that a dead man can do to come alive. That is the dominion of sin over the lives of the sons and daughters of Adam. Works do not save or redeem us.
[The folly of the cultural practice of the sinner’s prayer is the assumption that if people do the work of confession and repentance, they are saved]
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This much is very clear for us. But the thing that confuses many is the amount of work and the call to work that is involved in this grace saturated journey of redemption.
If we are saved while we were yet sinners,
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
that means Jesus died for an unworthy people. Yet when He says in Matthew 10:37,
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
Is He suggesting that you have to strive to be worthy of Him? But isn’t that work?
Now, I think that this is work, but it is not salvation by works. And how I understand that is by asking the question, what is the specific work or thing that Jesus calls you to do in order to be worthy of Him. None.
You see, Jesus does not suggest in the least that you can be worthy of Him if you pick up the cross daily and love him more than dad and mom. That would be salvation by works. But what Jesus says here is that those who are made worthy of Him (those who are saved) pick up the cross daily and love him more than dad and mom.
In other words, Jesus is not directly instructing works as the basis of our Christian inheritence but as evidences of it.
Maybe some examples might help
[If you don’t exercise regularly, you’re not going to be healthy. Does that mean I’ll be healthy if I exercise? Well, not if you continue eating that junk food. What if I eat good food and exercise? Well, not if you don’t eat on time and get enough sleep.]
[If you don’t do well for you practicals, you’re not worthy to pass. Ok, what if I do my practicals well, will I pass? Well, as long as you pass all your theory exams?]
The list of works keep going on.
But rather what Jesus is suggesting here is that those who are worthy of Him look a certain way, they conform to a certain standard. So the question is not if we do this or that, but rather, what causes us to do this or that?
Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.”
But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
So if I cut off the past by sheer will, am I fit for the kingdom?
[The sin of Lot’s wife - she couldn’t see the worthlessness of sin in the sight of God’s glory]
Following Jesus has no ‘but’. Unlike Elisha’s plea to Elijah in 1 Kings 19:19 where he was allowed to bid farewell to his parents, Jesus’ call to his disciples takes precedence over everything else (as the ESV study bible puts it)
Jesus’ call to us to follow Him awakens an affection so intense that the trivialities of this world take a back seat.
So these aren’t just works. They are works as a result of something. They are works that are evidence of something deeper. Nevertheless, these are real works.
For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
So, the longer we spend time studying the full counsel of God’s word, two undeniable realities seem to be intricately intertwined.
There is no salvation without faith
There is no living faith without works
Therefore, when we harmonise the glory of grace and the determination of works, we must be sure to do so without corrupting either of those realities.
We are saved by faith for good works. (Ephesians 2:10)
Let me give you a few practical examples,
We are saved by grace through faith and it is not of our doing, so that no man may boast. But tell me beloved, is there salvation without hearing the Gospel? Is there salvation without confession and repentance? Aren’t those works?
[Again, the folly of the cultural practice of sinner’s prayer]
Are these works what cause the regeneration of human heart, or are these works that come out of a regenerated heart? The heart of stone does not repent. It must be replaced by a heart of flesh that repents. This is the work of God, not man.
What about our sanctification? Is that the work of God or the work of man?
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
You work out! But who is at work in you? You’re working out in fear and trembling cause you know who’s working in all of it.
So there seems to be an intricate intermingling between God’s work in us and our work for Him. But do we work? Yes! Absolutely!
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Our imbalances
Our imbalances
As you can see then, all of us are in one way or another are imbalanced in our dependance upon grace and our diligence in works.
How then do we harmonise grace and works in our lives?
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
What exactly does Jesus require of us to do here? Love.
Well, then doesn’t your undersanding of what love is have a strong bearing on how you understand this text.
When you’re praying in your room and you hear your mom or dad frantically yell out to you because of some emergency, do you sit there and wonder if it is ok to go out and help them, if doing so means that you love mom and dad more than Jesus?
Of course not!
But if you’re praying in your room and you get a missed call from mom or dad or anybody else, should you pick up or continue praying?
Now the legalistic mind like that of the Pharisees, would turn all these into laws. They would forbid the watching of movies, having any kind of friendship with unbelievers, the wearing of ornaments, and the eating of certain foods.
But in doing so, they make things “unecessarily” hard for people to fall in love with Jesus. Because the Gospel is shoved down people’s throat and their mouths are taped shut so that they don’t vomit it all out.
On the other hand, the more liberally minded are at risk of falling off on the other side where they reduce down things that are “necessarily” hard and thereby watering down any love one might have.
For them, everything becomes both permissible and beneficial unliked (1 Corinthians 10:23).
What is love? You might turn to,
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
This is the balance. Love is not obedience. Love is that which causes obedience. It brings about obedience. In that sense, they are distinct from each other. But you see, love will keep the commandments.
So, the legalist is in danger because he confuses love for obedience, and the liberal is in danger because he separates out love entirely from obedience.
Now, Jesus doesn’t ask us in Matthew 10 to fear, revere, honour, or obey God more than our parents. He uses the word Love. Why? Not because these other things aren’t important but because love is the cause that brings about all of these other things.
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The balance
The balance
What then, is Love?
Love is the volitional desire toward another for their well-being.
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
That kind of kicks works to a corner doesn’t it? For Paul, works apart from love is NOTHING. For James, faith apart from works is DEAD.
Love for God then, is the volitional passion one has for God’s glory.
Note that I use the word ‘volitional’ intentionally. Because love for God is not passive. We are not puppets and our love for God is not involuntary. WE choose God! WE love God! WE desire God! WE receive the Holy Spirit! WE obey Him! We serve the church!
Then how is it all by grace?
Look to,
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.
I laboured. There is no doubt that we must labour.
Yet not I. The labour that is the result of another cause does not get credit. The cause gets all the credit.
The unworthy ones
The unworthy ones
for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.
They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.
Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.
Not even Paul could identify them till they fell away
Works is the evidence of Grace. But works without love are damning.