Luke 14 at verse 25, listen to the word of our God, it says, 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, 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, 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, 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 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000. 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." This is God's holy word. The congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior preached A repulsive gospel, a gospel that is in many ways awful and off-putting because it's centered around the cross. The cross as an offense, the cross as repugnant, and it requires that we look right at it and think in terms of the cross. which is unusual, which goes against our flesh, against our normal way of thinking. Becoming Christian and joining with God's people is far from a guarantee of popularity in this world. It's far from a promise of favor of the people around us or likability with people in our lives. Jesus is not just another way for us to affirm ourselves, which is what much religion has been, you know, made to be, and Christianity is one of them also. God wants to affirm you. God wants to, you know, he wants you to be your best self, as it were, and the focus is, you know, flipped. God is helping me be a better person. God is assisting me on my journey, my spiritual journey. So we've turned religion into a way to puff up our pride, to inflate ourselves more. And that's what our culture is interested in doing. But Jesus came to carry out the Father's mission and to speak the truth, even to suffer and die and rise again in a way that we need to know and believe, and that is not the same as, you know, more self-affirmation. In the church climate of our day, it's not a stretch to say that the message Jesus proclaims here would get him thrown out of many churches. To talk this way and to say, you can't be my disciple, is like the ultimate offense in many churches. They don't have room for Jesus' own language and his own teaching in their gospel, because it's such an offense. This is directly from the mouth of Jesus, but it's also Interestingly, opposed by many so-called Christian pulpits and teachers across this nation. You're not allowed to tell anyone that they can't have a share in Jesus. You're not allowed to tell anyone. warning them or calling on them to repent in the most intense, self-denying way possible. That's too much. You're asking people too much. No line drawing, no boundaries. Boundaries and exclusion is the greatest sin. Christians never exclude. We've been told that here. We've been condemned for that. Christians never judge anything right or wrong. Christians never talk about the fact that there is a true way and a false way, and that we need to follow Jesus in truth. and that faking following him, just mere talk instead of action, hearing but not doing, that that's more devastating than unbelief. It's even more devastating to talk about Jesus and then to ignore his truth. In as much as many churches have embraced that spineless and sort of blurred and mixed gospel, they have no place for this passage. They have no place for this message that Jesus brings. Jesus rejects half-hearted disciples by excluding all those unwilling to pay the full cost of devotion to him. Jesus rejects half-hearted disciples You could say lukewarm disciples. You could say, you know, one foot in, one foot out. You can say it a lot of ways. He rejects half-hearted disciples by excluding all those unwilling to pay the full cost of devotion to him, even carrying a cross. So, he starts out describing the way, interestingly, and I named the sermon after, you know, the way we need to hate those dearest to us. to prefer Him to the ultimate degree. That's an interesting teaching. We'll talk about what that means. He wants us to take up our own cross and follow Him, or we can't be His disciple. He wants us to renounce everything that we have in preference to Him, or we can't be His disciple. All these are extreme teachings. They're not nice teachings. They're true teachings. They're not shallow teachings. They're deep teachings. But they are full and true teachings of Christ. So with the large crowds around him, he thins them out with this message. His deep cost analysis for discipleship shows that if we do not hate even those dearest to us, then we're not worthy to be his disciples. Now, what does that mean? You know, we should be clear that we've understood what he said. The wrong understanding, right, of these words would be that Jesus condones sinful hatred. You know, that Jesus wants us to be hateful people in the way that the church is often slandered to be. The church hates women. The church hates science. The church hates, you know, there's a long list of the things we supposedly hate. Rarely on that list is you hate your own brother, father, mother, you know, whatever. Jesus makes the list differently than them for a different purpose. He does not condone sin. But in Matthew 10.37, to be exact, he says, 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. In other words, it's a question of priority. It's a question of degree. It's a serious and intense teaching, but with a certain purpose in mind. Does your love for Jesus so exceed the love of any person, father, mother, wife, sister, brother, children, et cetera, close relations, close friends? Does it so exceed love for them that by comparison, he is everything and your love for them could even, it looks like hatred in comparison. That's sort of the idea here. It's extreme categories. Our love for Jesus, so intense, so full, so necessary. Our love for him and sort of reckless abandon for him, so great that the love of any other person or thing doesn't even register, that's what it takes to be his disciple. That's what it takes. The love of God, the love of God has to be that full. It has to be that real. It's undisputed first place. He is the clear, far and away first, for our hearts, that's what's needed. We love him as the closest relationship of our life, so that all other close relations, by comparison, would seem cold. That's a powerful teaching. If you know what it takes to make a good relationship with another person, then you know why this is radical. and what it takes to be in that kind of communion with Jesus is no hobby, it's no window shopping experience, it's no swiping, browsing, what I might buy, just casual relationship. We know that close relationships mean a lot, and it's not just talk, and it's not just in name. To be married, we share everything. We're counted as one flesh. We share a name, a mailing address, a phone number. We spend time together that's countless. Hours together, days together, months, weeks, years. with the people that we love. We share with people who are close to us our hidden thoughts, things we wouldn't say to others. We would share with them. They know about our plans. They know our opinions. They know what we would say or what we would think. They could guess our opinion. We trust their advice. We would call them if there was a disaster. I don't want them to find out secondhand or thirdhand what's going on with me. That would be like an insult. We're so close. So, monumental things happen in our lives. We would want to tell them with bad news, with good news. I care. I care. My dad has pains or whatever. I want to know. I don't want to find out months later that you were sick. I don't want to find out my brother hurt his knee and no one even bothered to tell me. You know, I want to know what's going on in the lives of my children. What would I do without the love of my wife, my husband? They're indispensable relationships. These are people whose faces we can see when we're on the phone with them, not just because of their, you know, ID on your phone. You can read something they wrote and hear it in their voice, people who are close to you. This is, you know, these relationships, you can hear, You can hear their voice, you know so much about them. These relationships, Jesus says, are so far second to the faith, bond, to the closeness and love we need with Jesus, that by comparison, they're tiny, they're nothing, they're cold by comparison to what we need for Jesus. That's really a radical teaching. Many in the world think that Christianity is a nice idea that we blindly follow. Others twist Christianity to be kind of like, well, it's a reasonable, sort of clean-cut, healthy, moral life, which makes us healthy, wealthy, and wise. That's what Christianity is. But to be a Christian in truth is to bond oneself in a living relationship with Jesus Christ, and to be cut off with him is death. To be cut off from him is to be cut off from the vine, and we are the dry, dead branch. To be cut off from him is to be the wandering sheep subject to being devoured by some wild animal. We bond ourselves in a relationship with Jesus And through Him with the Father and the Spirit, Jesus is the real living Savior. And we are His body. He's the head, and we're connected to Him in this living relationship. He lives, and we live because of Him. He loves us, and we love Him. We want to be like Him. And He cares about whether each person, every disciple, is walking closely with Him. He knows whether we're walking closely with Him or not. And the command is that our love for Him needs to grow and never stop growing, and make other relationships pale in comparison to the way that we pursue the love of Christ, and the honor of Christ, and the way of Christ. Does Jesus get consideration You know, in all of our decisions, I consider, you know, I consider my finances. What am I going to do? You know, this, I consider my, I consider my spouse, you know, what's Annalena going to say? You know, do this, do that. What's going to happen to my kids if I make this decision or that decision? Does Jesus get consideration in the way we're living, the way we make decisions, our goals, our finances? According to this passage, His disciples care far and away what's pleasing to Him. No close second the consideration of others. We care. His disciples, they care what happens to honor the Master. We care about His wandering sheep and His little ones. We care about new disciples and their growth in Him. We defend what Jesus calls precious, what Jesus calls holy and pure, His church, And everything that is important to Him is important to us. What would Jesus want from me as it relates to the defense of the widow and the fatherless? What does Jesus want from me as it relates to the care of the poor? What does He want from me as it relates to the use of my tongue? What pleases Him? We want what He wants. We love what He loves according to His Word. You can't be a Christian merely by walking into a church or by mere talk. You can't be a Christian by giving all your money to good causes. You can't be a Christian simply by hearing a sermon or eating the whole loaf of communion bread. You can only be a Christian when you repent and believe and are bonded truly in a new relationship, a new life to Jesus as your only Savior. So to come to church to make my parents happy, or to placate my spouse, or to please your girlfriend, or to feel better about yourself, or to feel religious, whatever that means, to make others think better of you, this is all plinking off the surface. until we have come to grips with the way that Jesus is teaching here. You can't be my disciple unless you take up your cross and follow me, suffer after me, live with me, love me more than those people that are the closest to you at this very moment. That's shocking, but necessary. Absolutely necessary that we be more than hearers and not doers, that we be talkers but don't act, that we're window shoppers, as it were. Christians love Jesus Christ as their first motivation. It's the love of Jesus that is compelling us, that's how the apostle put it. We're slaves to Christ, that's how the apostle put it. And we have come to understand what that means, that the love of Jesus, right, it is compelling us to be what we are as Christians, to worship and honor him, the love of Christ. It isn't pleasant to go through these, but strictly speaking, a Christian You know, a Christian would be a Christian, would come to worship and hear the gospel and follow the gospel in all the different implications of it, even if their family disowned them. And some of our families may have disowned us as a part of the walk of faith, whether for a long time or completely or to a lesser degree ostracized us. The Christian is compelled to praise Jesus and love him. and listen to the gospel even if the people we are closest to in terms of family bonds and relations won't. Even if we were to lose our job over it, a Christian would be compelled to love and listen to Jesus even if our spouse didn't support them in it. And their children were baffled and calling them foolish over it. In this culture, we need the Holy Spirit and the Word of Christ to follow Jesus, while many churches have abandoned the Word for other goals, other priorities, other prizes. We have to endure the hatred, even of many so-called believers. They're like, nah, you don't have to do that. We're a church. We don't have to carry our cross. We don't have to. be weird Christians who exclude, or we don't have to be this intense. You even have other Christians piling, other so-called Christian churches piling on. That's not Christian. I saw that this week of somebody that I graduated high school with making the case of how mean and bad the church is because homosexual, LGBT, whatever ideology should be welcomed and included. It's mean to do anything else. You're not a real church. If you exclude anything, anyone, if you demand the cross, and you demand the love of Jesus more than your own daughter, more than your own son, or grandson, or granddaughter, etc. This is what Jesus is calling for. This is what He demands. That we love Him first, most, always. Can we reconcile with that? Can we grapple with that? No matter how costly we love and listen to his voice, Christ alone, right? The solus Christus of the Reformation. Taking up our cross doesn't sound so bad today because Christians, you know, We wear gold crosses, there's a cross on my Bible cover, there's a cross up there in the church. We have to remember, still, that the cross is a torture implement. You know, like the guillotine of the French Revolution has an ugly, bloody reputation. We would do well to remember and to think about the idea of the cross as an implement of torture for the worst kind of criminals and traitors and offenders. And it's the kind of implement of torture that people would say they deserve what they got. Their wicked life led them to be nailed to that ugly piece of wood. That would help us understand why this is an offense. You can't be my disciple unless you carry your cross after me. And a lot of people were like, and I'm out. I check out of this. I don't want to be associated with the scum of the earth, criminal fringe group Christian. I don't want to be a part of this. To this crowd, Jesus has crossed the line when he says, you can't be my disciple unless you carry a cross. He's crossed the line. You know, like now they're like, you know, they're like looking for their chance to exit quietly. The cross is not cool. The cross is not something that we mentioned in civilized conversation. The cross is a torturous shame. And it's a reminder that we're under the terrorizing thumb of a cruel oppressor. The cross is ugly. We spit on those people. They get what they deserve. They're criminals. They deserve a bad end. To follow Jesus? I have to risk that reputation to follow Jesus. I have to go through that kind of suffering to follow Jesus. I have to be slandered in that way, known by that reputation. That's where he's going as he proclaims the gospel. That's where Christians will go to the cross and through the cross with Jesus. his death, his resurrection. Everybody right now is like, oh, look at the time, the dentist appointment. Oh man, I gotta be somewhere. When he starts saying, you can't follow me except through the cross. Each one has to love Jesus from the heart. Take away the restraints. Take away the comforts, as it were, temporary comforts. We would still run to him. That's the faith. drop us off 100 miles away, we'll come back to suffer with him. That's the faith. We'll go back to Jesus the way that birds know to go south at the proper time and the proper season. You threaten us, he is our comfort and our refuge. Persecute us, shame us, hate us, we say it reminds us that we're with him. It reminds us that we belong to Jesus and we're at home in the midst of shame and suffering. We will carry our cross after you, Jesus. No one can do it for me. Mom can't carry it for me. My wife doesn't carry it for me. The pastor and the elders can't carry it for me. I have to love Jesus and count the cost of serving him. Do we want to be a part of him? Do you want to be a part of him? It will cost you everything. That's the message. The churches that are selling the low commitment Jesus, like, you know, Jesus is cool and you can be a part of it, you know, and Jesus can fit into your busy, upwardly mobile schedule. And, you know, Jesus can help you achieve your goals or whatever. They are not preaching Him with respect. They're not preaching Him with the full weight of His message in mind. You wanna be a part of Him, you have to die. You wanna be a part of Him, it'll cost you everything. More than you can pay, even your very self, a living sacrifice. Have we counted the cost of what it takes to be a Christian? You know, like I'll give Him a lot, but not, you know, not this, not, you know, not the, I hold in reserve, that's not Christianity. What does it take to go all the way with Jesus? His two examples are upfront thinking about discipleship, upfront thinking about the rest of our lives and where our lives are headed. Wouldn't a builder or an architect want to be reasonably sure that he could complete the project he started before he broke ground on some major project like a tower? Doesn't it show irresponsibility poor judgment, illogical and irrational thinking, a lack of sense to get halfway through a project and just run dry. The gospel ought to be preached so that people can think this way. It ought to be preached so that they can say, oh, I didn't know how much it cost until now. I didn't realize what it would take. And it's not my religious hobby. It's everything. That's how it should be preached. And to preach it another way, it is a deception. for people who Jesus called to think about where you're going. You're gonna build this tower and you're not prepared to build it all the way up? Think of what the New York skyline would be if people just built until they ran out of money. Oops, I didn't realize it would take that much steel and glass and concrete. It was a lot. Oh well, I guess my massive skyscraper is unfinished. Embarrassing. Think about the stakes involved in a conflict where a king is risking his life, his lands, his people by taking on a large enemy. If he knows he has no chance for victory, won't he seek peace right away before his army is destroyed? Maybe he himself is killed and his kingdom falls. That's what a responsible leader has to do. Think a little bit. Think forward. lead with some kind of actual forethought. Anyone who wants a place with Jesus and a place in God's kingdom will have to sit down and think about what kind of God is this? What kind of savior is he? What kind of message is the gospel? And the cross is no cute hobby. The cross is life and death. Am I prepared to follow Jesus to the end? Prepared, if necessary, to forsake every other relationship so that I can have this relationship with Him? Prepared to lose my life, as many Christians have done, even up to this day, more than ever? in this century than any previous century? Prepared to carry a cross with sufferings like Jesus? You know, is this only to get me through? You know, I need a little religion because I have grief. You know, I have loss in my life. I need a little religion right now. That would be nice. Is this only to look good? You know, I don't want any real heavy lifting. I don't have time for any real commitment. Why would I trudge halfway down this path only to turn around and trudge back? If I'm going to pursue other life priorities before him, better to know now. Why not get started on those now if that's what I want truly? The good news. For all the difficulty of this message, the good news is that Jesus has not come with exclusion as his goal. It's not as though he's come to throw away disciples or to diminish the numbers of his disciples, which will ultimately be as many as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. His goal, instead, is the truth that leads to eternal life. It is the good news that actually saves our souls and that leads to everlasting glory and peace with Him. If God's goal was exclusion, He would never have sent Jesus to seek and to save the lost. Look at the track record of Jesus' ministry. It's not the triathletes, as it were, the rich and the powerful who flocked to Jesus. It was the poor. It was the weak. It was the sinner, the tax collector, the Sidonian woman who ended up being the faithful and the friends of Jesus. And he loved and cared for and healed and ministered to them freely. And by believing in him, They were included while others tried every possible way to improve themselves and failed. And the Apostle Paul says he was the best example of that. I excelled everyone in all of the ways that I could self-improve, and I fell so short of Christ that it was like a wreck, a total ruin, garbage, worthless. Jesus came and lifted up people who couldn't lift themselves up. How did He do it? Except that they put their faith in Him and they lost their lives to gain everything, right? They lose the world and all of the things of this world to have Christ. And somehow, right, by seeking Christ first and His kingdom first, everything else follows after. That's the promise. Jesus, right, is calling us to get in. And to those who trust Him with simple faith, He gives the Holy Spirit and eternal life and all of the riches of His kingdom. And so if we have been sluggish, if we have been half-hearted, if we try to balance equal devotion to Him and career, to money, my goals in Jesus, we need to stop our wavering and our tentative attitude and give our whole heart to Him. Repent and change and come in. is the message, it's the warning. If we don't know Jesus well, we have to get to know Him now, and listen to His voice, and feed daily on His Word, and ask Him in prayer to grant us everything that we're missing, to increase our devotion and our wisdom in Him, seeking out the answers that Jesus readily provides to those who ask Him for wisdom. And from my part, right, that's a great joy to help others know the Lord and get all the way on, as it were, onto the things of the Lord and out of the things of this world. We have to pray for one another, help one another in such a way that we let go of the things of this world to have Him. And those who know Jesus love Him more and more. It's a fascinating thing to know God because the more we learn about Him, the more we love Him, the more of Him we see, the more that He reveals to us, the greater our devotion to Him becomes, the greater our love for Him can be. If you're convicted that you're coasting in the Christian life, then it's time to patiently build good habits, repent, right, of our lukewarm, half-hearted response, so that a year from now we won't say the same thing. Oh, you know, it's, I feel like my faith is going nowhere. Won't those who have loved other things in competition with Jesus confess our sins and be through with them? And those who have made lethargy a pattern and a habit then begin in prayer and devotion and worship to begin to eat and drink and taste and see that the Lord is good. Those whose communication with Jesus has been dead air to open up our prayers to Him again and risk speaking up also about what we believe filling that great commission that He's given. And those who have been out of the Word, right, to start to feed on His Word again, getting close to Him, and starting to demonstrate the kind of devotion that leaves other devotion far behind in favor of Christ. And wherever Jesus is truly preached, That call has to be clear. Get in. All the way in. And don't pretend. Outside of Jesus, there is no life in terms of our worship today. Outside of Jesus is the flood that consumed the earth. Outside of Jesus is disaster. But inside of Him, and his cross, we have a share in his life. There's no middle way, and we need to repent of that kind of lukewarm Christianity, that kind of half-hearted Christianity, repenting of our sins and coming in, not, you know, fiddling around on the doorstep, not telling, you know, God, I guess, what he wants to hear, but in action and in truth. The Creator, who made everything can supply us to overflowing. We have no fear about the idea that we would recklessly pursue the things of the Lord. By comparison, we chase after them, we drop everything, we run after Jesus, and there's no harm in it, there's no hurt in it that will be lasting. We lose what is temporary to gain what cannot fail. We lose what has fading value to gain what is lasting treasure. Though it cost us everything, like the pearl, the pearl of great price. Sells everything he has to get this pearl. So we recklessly sell off the rest of our lives that we could have Jesus and rejoice over him. And God fills us again and again. But we shouldn't pretend. And Jesus knows the difference. He knows who loves him and who doesn't. We should never be discouraged. Jesus has assured us, I've come for the sick. I've come for the weak. I've come for sinners. And his whole work was to ransom the undeserving and to bring in by adoption those who were wandering and those who were lost and those who were prodigal He loves to make faithful disciples out of former traitors. That's great news for us. To those who say, like, I don't know if I could be His disciple. I don't know if God would ever want me or could accept me. He gives what's needed. He gives Christ and His cross, and we receive it by faith, not by our works, not by our money, not by anything else. Don't let your failures or your worries or the failures and worries of others trip you. but believe in Jesus and you will receive His life. Believe in Him and become His disciple and He's ready to receive those who embrace Him as He is, right? The crucified Christ. Faithfully follow Jesus and the Lord of glory will go out of His way to make a place for you, a home for you in heaven. Follow Jesus, sacrificially, suffering with Him, and God promises, for those who endure, they will reign with Him. And that's the inheritance that gives us confidence in the face of this teaching. Whatever the cost, it's worth it. Whatever the cost, it's, the glory that God has prepared for us is beyond anything we can imagine. Amen, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're thankful to You for this message, which is an intense one. But, Lord, it's what we need for our souls. To become your disciple, costly as it may be, is worth it in every way, and it leads to everlasting life. It leads to glory, even perfection in Jesus. So, Lord, place the perfections of Christ in front of our eyes to love Him most. Everything else a distant second, and fill our lives then with the blessings of Christ and His Spirit, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.