Luke 14:25-35

I encourage you to take your bibles and turn to Luke chapter 14 if you want to follow in the Pew Bible, it's on page nine. 27. Luke chapter 14, page 927. We're talking today about the cost of following Jesus. And the passage is about it's an enormous cost to truly follow him and be as close to him as possible.

But the cost of following Jesus is way worth more than anything you value. It's way worth more than all the things that you value. So yes, the cost is high, but the reward is Great. Luke chapter 14. I begin reading in verse 25.

Now, great crowds were traveling with him, so he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, 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. For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, this man started to build and wasn't able to build to finish. Or what king going to war against another king will not first sit down and decide if he is able with 10,000 to oppose the one who comes against him with 20,000.

If not, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace in the same way. Therefore, every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be be my disciple. Now, salt is good. But if salt should lose its taste, how will it be made salty? If it isn't for the soil or for the manure pile, they throw it away.

Let anyone who has ears to hear listen. May we pray and ask for God's guidance? Father, we thank you for the word that you have given us that that we know that it is without error, that it's inspired from you. But we also understand, Father, that we need your Holy Spirit to understand what it means. We need his power to show us how to apply it to our lives.

And we ask, Father, that today as we go through the passage, that you will point out any changes that we need to make in our lives that we might grow in our relationship with you, that we might abide more fully in you. In Jesus name, Amen. Have you ever thought, wow, those two people really have a special friendship and I would like to have a friend like that. I felt that Way before. Or you say, wow, that dad has an extra amazing relationship with his kids.

I would like to either be a dad like that, or I'd like to have a dad like that.

Or maybe you thought, wow, that family just has a fantastic dynamic. I would really like to be part of a family like that. Or, wow, that couple has an awesome marriage. I would like my spouse and I to have a marriage like that. Any of those resonate with any of you?

You know, God has instilled in us a great desire to have friendship, to have family, to have marriages, to have relationships that are important. Because we all desire to be loved. And we all have a desire to love other people. We go back to Genesis chapter one, where we. We learn about this.

It says, God created man in his own image. Image. He created him in the image of God. He created them male and female. And then in Genesis 2, the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper corresponding to him. God made us like him because God wants to have friendly relationships. He has a relationship within the Trinity. We have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He's always been relational.

There's a family there. There's this desire to love and to be loved. God created us in his image. Here's your test for the day. Either true or false, we are different than animals and rocks.

How many people agree with that? All right, now, some of you might say the trees are important, all right? But we are different because unlike anything else in creation, we're made like God because we desire relationship. That's one of the keys. And in desiring relationships, we have this desire to.

And I'm going to use two words here, we really desire to worship something. But what I'm saying is we develop. We desire to value another person in a very special way.

But I also say that if we can't find someone to worship and we can't find someone to value, sometimes we try to find that in not a person, but in a thing. Because if we can't find the relationship we desire with a person, we will look for something to pour our relational desires and our relational energies into.

In essence, we have faith.

Not exactly like our faith in God, but we have this faith. We have this great hope in that someone or in that something that they're going to make us happier, that they're going to make us more fulfilled. We have faith that they're going to make us better. We have faith that they're going to make us worth more. We we have faith that they are going to make us feel complete.

And these are all great desires that are instilled in us. But if you buy a boat, or you buy a car, or you start to date someone, or you even marry someone, if you're depending upon them to make you happier, in the end, there's a good chance that they're going to. What? They're going to disappoint you? They're going to fail?

If you're depending on a person or a thing to make you feel fulfilled, they're going to fail. They're not going to make you better, they're not going to make you worth more, they're not going to make you feel complete. But God's given us all these desires because he wants us to find the answer to those desires in Him.

The desires that God gave us are meant to point us ultimately to God, since He is the ultimate source of satisfaction for all these desires. We go on to read in Genesis 2, the man said, this one at last is bone of my bone and flesh in my flesh. This one will be called woman, for she was taken from man. And this is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife and they become one flesh. And then in 128, God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.

I'm just pointing out God puts in us the desire for friendship, for family and for marriage, or for relationships outside of marriage that that are wholesome and extremely important. We talked last week a lot about sanctification and basically the message is about sanctification again today. But let's be reminded of the three parts of our salvation. There's the justification, there is sanctification and there is glorification. And just briefly, let's remember that justification.

It's the act. It's a one time happening of God declaring a sinner righteous, not based on their own merit, but through faith in Jesus Christ, whose righteousness is imputed to them. It's a forensic or legal declaration of being not guilty. Providing peace with God. In Ephesians 2 we read, for you are saved by grace through faith.

That means it's a gift. It's not from yourselves, it's from God, and it's a gift that he gives. It's not from works, you can't earn it, you can't do enough for it, you can't say enough, you can't be enough. And the reason for that is that God doesn't want us walking around Boasting and saying, well, I'm more saved than that person or I'm more saved than she is because I've done this and I've said that it's all from God alone.

Sanctification, not a one time act, but by definition it is the ongoing work of God's grace. Again, it's from him transforming believers to be more like Jesus Christ by setting them apart from sin and dedicating them to holy living. That requires the believer's active participation. Just want to emphasize it's the ongoing work of God's grace, but it requires, what does it say, the believer's active participation. I think of a public school teacher who works effortlessly to be the best teacher in the world.

And you know, anyone can have the best teacher in the world, but as a student, you're not going to fully benefit from that unless you participate. You have to actively be involved in the learning process that the teacher is offering you in order to reach higher and higher levels of scholarship. Yes, you're going to be a student for 12 years. You're enrolled, there's no question about that. But whether you benefit from it depends on what the teacher offers and your involvement.

That's what sanctification is like. God provides everything, but we have to actively participate. And the glorification, that's the future perfection when we are removed from the presence of sin and God makes everything new.

Your desires for friendship, family and marriage are almost fully met in Jesus Christ. And in the process of sanctification, we understand how our needs are met more and more and more by God as we grow closer to Him. And growing in satisfaction makes our relationship with God go from a seed to a sprout, to a flower and finally to fruit.

If you stop the process anywhere in there, you're not getting what it's meant for. I want us to look at some verses that describe this relationship that God wants us to have. We go to Revelation chapter three. And what I want you to see in these verses is that God wants a relationship with you that's personal. He wants one that's intimate.

He provides a relationship that's fulfilling. And he also provides a relationship that does change us and make us better. It's transformative. In Revelation 3:20, See, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.

Jesus was speaking to the church, a church that had believers in it. But he was saying, I want to be more than just your Savior. I want to come in and I want to sit down and have a meal with you. And we all know how special that is. We know lots of people, but we don't invite everybody over to dinner.

And it's a special occasion when you do that, because God wants to have this personal, intimate relationship with us. In John 14, Jesus answered, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. God doesn't want to reside outside of your tent. He doesn't want to reside outside of your home.

He wants to live there in your home with you, receiving love from us and giving love. Because again, he wants a personal, intimate, fulfilling, transformative relationship with you that comes about as he offers us sanctification. And we respond actively to that. The psalmist expressed it well. In Psalm 27 we read, I have asked for just one thing from the Lord.

He says, it's the one thing that I just really desire, I want to have. And that thing is to dwell in the house of the Lord all, all the days of my life, gazing on the beauty of the Lord and seeking him in his temple. I think the closest thing we have to this is marriage. When I met Mary, I wanted to live with her. I wanted to keep gazing at her beauty and I wanted to keep seeking after her, to know her better and better.

That's what God wants us to do with him. And then in James 4. 8, We're told that if we draw near to God, that's our active participation, that he will also on his side. Do what? Draw near to us.

To dwell with God, to gaze on him, to seek him for this personal, intimate, fulfilling, transformative relationship that he wants us to have. But it requires us paying the cost. Following Jesus. And once again, I'm not talking about just getting saved. I'm talking about this process of growing closer and closer to him.

Let's go back to our text. Now we're in Luke chapter 14. I read again in verse 25. Now great crowds were traveling with him. It's not going to be that way soon.

Once he's crucified. Jesus knows that. So he turns and he said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. He caught their attention. Hate my mother and father.

Hate my wife and children. And then he went on to say, whoever does not bear his own cross, the most painful, terrible, excruciating, elongated way to kill somebody, he's asking people to carry their cross. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus. He's on his way to the cross. And of those following him, even those closest to him, he knows that they're going to abandon him during his darkest hour. Even those that have proclaimed he is the Messiah are going to abandon Him. But he knows eventually they will return and many will continue in their faith, and many will embrace him as Savior.

But there are going to be some that are going to draw into an even closer relationship with Him. He's talking about being a disciple here. And what did that mean in Jesus Day? It meant that you chose someone that you wanted to follow because you wanted to be like them. You shared meals with them.

You stayed in the same places with them. You traveled with them, you listened to them. You desired to emulate them. You watched how they brushed their teeth. You watched how they tied their shoes because you wanted to be like them.

You wanted to be a disciple. And that's what Jesus is wanting us all to do. So the question today as we look at the text is, how do I get the most from out of my relationship with Jesus Christ? And if we think about human relationships, you get what you invest in them. And it's the same way in our relationship with the Lord.

If you invest a little, you get a little. If you invest a lot, you get a lot. And if you invest a lot more, what do you get? You get a lot more.

First thing that Jesus points out here is, number one, I make God the most important person in my life. Jesus makes this startling statement about hating your mother and father and wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even your own life.

Because he's wanting people to stop and think. And I believe he got their attention. He wanted them to stop and think. What is it that you're saying here? Because this doesn't sound right.

Now, as with all scripture, we can't just take one verse and use that. You can't say, well, I read this verse today. I was supposed to hate my wife, so it's okay for me to divorce you because I don't love you anymore. You can't base what you believe on one verse. You have to look at all of scripture, how it fits.

I just want to give us a list about parents and families and relationships. In Mark 7, Jesus said, Honor your father and mother. In Ephesians 5, it says, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. In Mark 10, Jesus took the children in his arms. He put his hands on them, and he blessed them.

In Matthew 5 we're told to be reconciled to our brothers. Don't ever let anything continue to simmer there that isn't good. Luke 6 Love your enemies. Mark 12 Love your neighbor as yourself and John 13 Love one another as Christ has loved you. Certainly in the full light of the New Testament, Jesus was not demanding an unqualified hatred of parents and spouses and friends and children.

What he was saying is, our love for family is not any less. Would you say those three words with me? Not any less.

But what he is saying is that our love for Jesus is more than love for anyone else. See if you can fill the blanks in again. Our love for family is not any less, but our love for Jesus is more. What Jesus was saying, paradoxically, was that our love for him must be so great and so pervasive that our natural love of self and family is dim in comparison to that. We are to be subordinate to everything, even our own being, to our love and commitment to Christ.

He is always our first. Loyalty in all other relationships must take second place. It's difficult, but that's what he's asking for. I want to read this passage. It's up here.

Hopefully you can read the print. It's kind of small. From RK Hughes this is where so many of us fall short in the secularized, anti family culture of today. Our family is at the center of our Christian ethic, and that is proper. But some of us love our wives, husbands and children more than we love God.

We miss the mark when we put their development athletically, intellectually, culturally, artistically and socially before their spiritual well being. We fall short when we spend more time in the car in one day shuttling them to games and lessons than we do in a month in prayer for their souls. By comparison, our lives reveal that we hate God and love our children disproportionately and that we are not Jesus disciples. The paradox is that the proper way to love our children is to hate them, because our greater love for God will enable us to love them with a greater love. Disciples are the best lovers of God and of family and friends.

Disciples must also always be ready to hate, to give second place to everything and everyone else. The relational cost of discipleship may seem harsh at first, but in right perspective and priority, this focuses our lives and makes them richer and fuller. Accepting discipleship's costliness produces a sweet saltiness.

Number one, I make God the most important person in my life. Number two, I put God's desires ahead of my desires. When we go back To Luke chapter 14, don't only hate your patience parents and your spouse and your children, brothers and sisters, but you even hate your own life to the point that you are bearing your own cross. In other words, whatever you value, you have to be willing to put Jesus Christ ahead of those things, whatever you desire, whether it's in relationships, whether it's in activities or hobbies, even going to church. If you desire that more then God, you're not putting him first.

The cross was an instrument of death. That Jesus willingly carried it to Golgotha to die. And what he's telling us is that daily we have to be willing to carry our cross, meaning we're willing to die for him at any time. We're willing to sacrifice anything for ourself. And some of us carry that cross for a short time, and some people carry it for a very long time.

But we must consistently be willing to put God's desires ahead of our own and be willing to give everything up, even our life at any point.

I make God the most important person in my life. I put God's desires ahead of my desires. We come to number three. Now I examine my life to know what I must hand over to Jesus. We actively spend time asking the Lord, what is here keeping me from this deep, intimate relationship that you want to have?

Let's go back to the text in verse 28. For which of you wanting to build a tower doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, this man started to build and wasn't able to finish. If we think about our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ as a tower that we are building, we want it to be finished completely one day. We want it to look wonderful, we want it to be awesome.

But it means we have to calculate the cost and be willing to pay whatever it takes to the end so that things are completely finished in our relationship with him.

Hebrews 12:1 2.

Therefore, since we have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. I examine my life to know what I must hand over to Jesus, the writer of Hebrews. He's making us think about the Olympic Games and it's Very important what people wear when they're doing whatever sport they are doing. If you're ice skating, you don't wear skis, right?

And if you're riding a bike, you don't wear ice skates. But it also has to do with the physical garments that you wear. And we're thinking about a person that's running a race around the track and. And we look down at them and they have only on exactly what they need to run the best. Now, in contrast to that, in the Emperor's box with all of the rich women up there with their long dresses and their gowns and their tiaras and their jewelry, their stilettos, if they were wearing them back then imagine that woman getting up and trying to go down and run the race.

What would have happened to her? It would have been disastrous. The writer here is saying if that woman wants to run the race, she has to take off all these things that would hinder her from running the race. That's what we have to do. We have to look at our lives.

What am I doing or what do I have that's keeping me from running this race?

And it's not just walking the race. What's the word? You're running it. And you're not just running it half heartedly, you're running it with endurance. That means you're going to set aside all these things that keep you from doing that well.

But the other thing here is we can't have something obscuring our vision from keeping our eyes on Jesus Christ, who is the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith. What are the hindrances in our life that are keeping us from running? What is making us walk in our spiritual life instead of running at full speed? What is drawing our attention away from Jesus Christ? And a good way to start thinking that way.

Is there anything in your life that draws your attention away from your family, your spouse, your children, your parents? Because if it's drawing your attention away from them, those things are probably keeping you from looking at Jesus Christ fully. Luke, chapter 14. We go back to the text. Here's a different situation.

This man is not building a tower and counting the cost. This is a king who is having to count the cost. Or what king going to war against another king will not sit down. He's taking effort. He's thinking about this and he's trying to decide, is he able to.

With how many does it say there, 10,000? To depose the one who comes against him with what, 20,000? What are the odds he's going to lose and he's considering that. So verse 32 says if not while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation and he asks for terms of peace. This king is not sending a delegation.

Say hey, let's have peace and shake hands over it. That's not going to achieve anything. He is sending a delegation saying what do we have to pay in order not to go to war? What is the cost for me and for my people? What do I have to give up?

Now he's going to try to make the best bargain he can but that other king may demand how much? Well, you have to give me everything. Not only all your possessions but all your pride as a king that you are going to lose in the same way. Therefore every one of you who does not renounce all of his possessions cannot be my disciple. I must examine my life to know what I must hand over to Jesus.

The king was going to have to pay whatever was necessary to avert war, both his possessions and his pride. He could go to war and know that he was going to lose but that would be foolishness on his part.

Number one, I make God the most important person in my life. Number two, I put God's desires ahead of my desires. Number three Three, I examine my life to know what I must hand over to Jesus. And now number four, I count the cost. I commit to the race and I run.

The Franklin Expedition of 1845 Annie Dillard wrote an essay about it. They were trying to find the Northwest Passage to go above Canada, to go around the world to see if that was easier. In 1845 Sir John Franklin with 138 officers and men embarked from England to find the Northwest Passage across the high Canadian Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. They sailed in two three masted barques B A R Q U E S Not as a dog bark but this was a type of boat. Each sailing vessel carried an auxiliary steam engine.

Now that would be important would it not? Have an engine to go through the Arctic?

Lost my place. And according to LP Kerwin, each ship made room. Let me see. They carry an auxiliary steamship and they had a 12 day supply of coal for the entire project that was supposed to last two or three years. How many days of coal did I say instead of additional coal?

According to LP Kirwan, each ship made room. Each one of the three ships for a 1200 volume library. So they'd have books to read, a hand organ that played 50 different tunes, they had china place settings for officers and men. They had cut glass wine, goblets they had sterling silver flatware. And the sterling silver knives, forks and spoons were particularly interesting.

The silver was of ornate Victorian design, very heavy at the handles and richly patterned. Now listen to this. Engraved on the handles were the individual officer's initials and family crest. Every officer had their own special, not plastic ware, but silverware. The expedition carried no special clothing for the Arctic, only the uniforms of her Majesty's navy.

The ships set out in high dungeon amid glorious glory and fanfare. And two months later a British whaling captain met the two barks in Lancaster Sound and he reported back to England that the men were of high spirits. He was the last European to see any of them alive. You see where this is going.

Years later, civilization learned that many groups of Inuit Inuit Eskimos had hazarded across these people involving various still living or dead members of the Franklin expedition. Some had glimpsed, for instance, men pushing and pulling a wooden boat across the ice. Some had found that a place called Starvation Cove, this boat or similar one and the remains of the 35 men who had been dragging it. At Terror Bay, the Inuit found a tent on the ice and in it 30 bodies. Simpson Strait, some Inuit had seen a very odd sight.

The pack ice pierced by the three protruding wooden masks of a bark. For 20 years, search parties recovered skeletons from all over the frozen sea. Accompanying one clump of frozen bodies were place settings of guess what? Sterling silver flatware engraved with officers initials and family crests. They were dragging a boat.

They were carrying silver. They weren't casting aside what they needed to get rid of so they can make the journey. How do I get the most out of my relationship with Jesus Christ? Number four. I count the cost.

I commit to the race. I run. I get rid of everything that's unnecessary. We come to number five now when we come back to our text in Luke chapter 14. Number five is I remove everything that might dilute my flavor.

Jesus said, now salt is good. Do y' all like salt? Be honest.

But if salt should lose its taste, how will it be made salty? When that happens, it isn't fit for the soil or for the manure pile. They throw it out. Let anyone who has ears to hear listen. Pretty strong statement.

Jesus is referring to people. If you lose your saltiness, you're not fit. For what soil or for the manure pile. Now if you're a chemist, you know that salt is a stable compound. It cannot be chemically changed, but it can be diluted.

You can take a cup of water and you can put a cup of Salt in it, stir it up, and you can drink it and you'll have a definite experience. You can put a teaspoon of salt in that same cup of water and drink it and have a different experience, but you could put one grain of salt in that cup of water and probably not have any experience at all.

Jesus saying, you're still salt, but if you are so diluted down in your life, nobody's going to sense the flavor that you're supposed to give. If there are so many things in our life that are diluting us so that people can't look at us and say, that person is a follower of Jesus, you're diluting your flavor. What can dilute our flavor as believers? What can make us so imperceptible to the world that we have no flavor? What are the things that make us look so much like the world that we no longer make a difference?

It could be your relationships, the people that you hang out with. People say, wow, all their friends act just like my friends. There's no difference in their life. Or maybe you've got so much preoccupation with things or hobbies, even your occupation, your reputation. It could even be about coming to church or having a wonderful marriage.

If all those things dilute your testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ. He says that you might as well be thrown out on the dirt or on the manure pile. C.S. Lewis expresses it this way. The cost of following Jesus Christ, the Christian way is different.

Christ says, give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good.

I don't want to just cut off a branch here and and a branch there. I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth or crown it or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked. The whole outfit, yes.

There can even be things in our life that are wonderfully good, good. But they're diluting us to keep us from representing Jesus Christ in the world. Discipleship requires everything. There are no exceptions. No one has ever become a disciple of Christ and lived a life of ease.

Hughes says, you can search the writings of the Apostolic Church and you will find no exception. You can check every writing and personal vignette during the first 400 years of the church and you will find no Disciple lounging on a bed of constant comfort. He writes that the same is true of the Dark Ages and the Renaissance and the reformation and the 500 years of intervening history. Discipleship always calls for sacrifice. So we end with three questions today.

Three questions that you need to answer. Who or what in your life is more important than Jesus Christ?

Question number two. To whom or what do you devote more time, treasures and talents than you do to Jesus? And lastly, what is God asking you to place after him today? I encourage you to take these questions home. Be like the man.

He counted the cost and figured out what he needed to pay to build the tower. Be like the king, to be willing to give up everything just so that you can have peace with those that are at war with you. And here we're talking about not being at war with God, but being in the intimate relationship with him that he desires. We're going to have a time of singing and invitation now. There will be some prayer team members at the back.

Maybe you want someone to pray with you today. Maybe you need someone to share with you what it means to start today, a relationship with Jesus Christ that you could be justified so that you can begin to the process of sanctification. While we're singing, just make your way out to the back and you will find them there. As instrumentalists make their way forward. Will you stand with me?

And then we'll close this in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what you have to offer us.

Make us willing to pay the price, no matter what the cost is, because we know the reward is far greater than we can ever imagine. Father, instill in us the desire, like the psalmist, to just want one thing, and that's to be in your presence, to look on your face and to dwell with you forever. Father, God, our hearts and how we need to change, show us very specifically what we need to do. And even if it's just one step that we need to take today, Father, help us to move forward that we might become more like your son. It's in his name that we pray.