Sermon Tone Analysis

They say our life is the sum total of our choices.

Which goes to say that we would do well to choose wisely.

But that doesn’t mean that we should chose ease.

So I was talking to my football team the other day and I asked them why they came out and endured the heat, the sweat, the stress, the bumps and bruises.

Why they would come out every day and run to the point of exhaustion or even getting hurt physically.

They all said… and I don’t doubt them… that they loved the game of football.

Of course that was the right answer.

But then i told them about a team I was able to be a part of that went deep in the playoffs all the way to the championship game.

I asked them what was the difference between that team and every other team that started the season together.

They thought it was probably luck, talent, their schedule… I told them all those things might be true, but one thing I’ve always found to be true about a team that plays late in the year is that the teammates LOVE each other.

They sacrifice for one another, they serve one another.

They don’t just love the game, they love their team.

A team that loves like their team like that, will go through anything in order to keep playing together.

The blood, sweat, tears, late nights, early mornings, summer workouts, all of it is cheap when compared to the joy found in playing together.

The cost of being a part of a team like that is very high… but in relationship to the reward of accomplishing a goal together, the price paid is actually a bargain.

It’s funny that the things in life that are the most worthwhile often come with the highest expectations; think of your most important relationships… special moments in your life… possessions you treasure… but when we are a part of it, we don’t think of the expectations as excessive, but just part of what’s necessary in order to have had the experience.

Let me ask you.

Do you feel that the Christian life has high expectations for your life?

Would you say it’s difficult to be a disciple?

How you answer that depends on wheth

It’s why some of you are passionate about Jesus… because he has literally given you a new life so anything Jesus might require of you is reasonable.

In today’s text, Jesus lays out what seems to be a very challenging text.

One that if it was the only message, we might struggle to get folks to be a part.

Hear Jesus’s words:

The Cost of Discipleship

These are strong words.

It feels like Jesus has again drawn a huge crowd, and just like he did before, he want’s to refine them, to have them consider again what they are doing.

So again he lifts the bar really high for those folks who continue to follow him.

He gives them 4 situations to illustrate the cost of discipleship.

The first one, Jesus puts in context of our family relationships.

He says:

That’s a ridiculous standard isn’t it?

What is Jesus saying here?

Remember whenever you come across a difficult text, the basic principal of biblical interpretation is that we let the Bible explain the Bible.

We don’t go to our thoughts, to our experience.

We go to the Bible.

And in the Bible, we find a parallel account of this same teaching of Jesus in Matthew 10:37.

Another time this word hate is used is Genesis 29 where Jacob’s love for Leah is described as being hated by Leah in one verse and the next it says that Rachel was loved more.

In Matthew 5, we are told to not hate, but love our enemies.

So Hate here in Luke doesn’t mean to hate as we think of it… but actually to love less… to be less concerned with the opinions of, the influence of our families.

To think less of what people say about us, even the most important people in our lives, than we do God.

This is the first cost of being a disciple that we must be willing to pay, the cost of Popularity.

Cost #1: Popularity

We all want to be popular, accepted.

And so our tendency is to do things in order to be approved by others.

Jesus says, don’t live for the approval of people any more.

You have something better to live for.

But the reality is, we struggle with leaving this behind.

We ask people What do you think of me?

What should I Do?

What should I Say?

We let people influence the friends we have, the schools we attend, the subjects we study in school, our professions, the clothes we wear, the car we drive, the house we buy, even the music we listen to.

What Jesus knew and we need to learn is the Fastest way to lose a desire to live for purpose of God is to begin living for the approval of people.

Living for the approval of others keeps you from fulfilling God’s purpose for you

That people are the number one distraction for us when it comes to God’s purpose for our life.

For some reason, we Christians tend to compromise all the time.

We will go places and do things we know we shouldn’t because we want to be accepted.

Preachers will avoid topics ... parents will ignore behavior… all because we want to be accepted by people.

I’ve got good news for you.

You have been accepted, and not by a pastor who wants to be accepted like you, but by God who has a purpose for your life.

But your need to be accepted by people will be a distraction if you aren’t careful.

FOrtunately Jesus offers us the solution… Discipleship.

Discipleship diminishes my distractions

One of my favorite stories to illustrate this is from the OT.

In it the prophet Nehemiah has heard that the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and he’s heartbroken over it, he’s weeping and praying God do something and God sends him.

… this should remind you that if your heart breaks for something it just might be God’s purpose for you.... anyway, Nehemiah is on the wall building and a rival kings send messengers to him and inviting Nehemiah to come and meet with them.

Nehemiah responds… Oh great the local leaders want to meet me! no he responded… I’m doing a great work and can’t come down.

When we lock in on following Jesus as our ultimate purpose in life, everything else is just distraction.

So we can live free from the burden of popularity.

The second cost Jesus points out in the passage is… let’s look:

Jesus had told his followers this before in Luke 9 23 “Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

Now these folks had no reason to expect that Jesus would die on a cross at this point in the story… only Jesus did.

What they did know though was that the cross was the means of death.

BUt not only death.

For the condemned man, it meant pain, shame, and persecution for him personally.

For the disciple of Jesus this meant a total surrender of control of their life… or what’s left of it here on earth.

As Deitrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

― Deitrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Taking up the cross refers to our paying the second cost… the cost of control.

Cost #2: Control

Do you like to be in control?

I do.

I tend to be a control freak.

Just the other day, I sent a message to someone I report to and they replied… man you move too fast… you don’t even give folks a chance to get there before you are moving on...

At work because there is a right way and there is everyone else’s way… that leads me to trying to do everything myself...

Outside… I go to our house on KI where I know I taught my son how to cut grass all the lines have to go a particular direction… but no he thinks he can just run the lawnmower any which way he wants

In the car… back seat drivers anyone?

In the house… The remote.

I’ll just leave it there.

Not just how we use it, but where it’s kept.

When It’s absolutely silly to not be able to find the remote.

It should always be right on the arm of my chair.

But seriously, maybe it’s a spouse, maybe it’s a coworker or employee, maybe it’s a child or grand child, but the more we try to control things and people, the more we fear losing control.

The more we try to control, the more we fear losing control.

The tighter we hold on to things the more we worry about it getting out of our grip.

We see this today in what’s called helicopter parents.

Parents who don’t let their kids out of their sight.

Have them bundled and packaged before every event.

Today there are parents who when they take their kids off to college… they actually go to class with the kid.