Okay, today we are looking at Luke chapter 14, verses 25 through 33. Luke 14, 25 through 33. Now large crowds were going along with 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 carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. For what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. A sermon may kind of be like smelling salts or a bucket of cold water in the face. Such things aren't pleasant, but they serve a purpose. And there comes a time when we need to wake up, and a bucket of cold water in the face serves that purpose. And the wake-up call to which I'm referring is the truth concerning what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus, a true Christian. Jesus here seems to not have read any of the church growth books. The gurus out there would advise against this sort of thing. He's got large crowds following him, and this is not what large crowds want to hear. So if you want to keep large crowds coming, you don't talk like this. It says, if he was trying to reduce the crowd numbers rather than increase them. And it reminds me of John 6, where large crowds came to him because they ate loaves and were filled. And he said, that's why you're coming here. And then he proceeded to deliver hard teachings and give them hard teachings until, at the end, everyone left him except the 12 to follow him no more. And Jesus here shows us the way. There is no such thing as meaningful church growth apart from the hard truths of scripture. If your church is increasing numerically, large crowds, but you're not preaching hard truths, then the growth is a mirage. It's meaningless. All the people that are gathered under soft and easy preaching will fade away rapidly whenever the persecution comes. Or, as is often the case, they won't fade away because they won't need to. They'll just change whatever needs to be changed, tweak whatever needs to be tweaked to conform to the world, and it won't be that big of an adjustment because they've been doing that all along. The world is never quite out of sight over the horizon. They stay a safe distance back so as not to be perceived as radical, but by the time they cross the same ground, they'll cross it eventually, and then it'll be mainstream. Jesus's words to his brothers in John 7, 7 apply in such situations. The world cannot hate you, he says, but it hates me because I testify of it that its deeds are evil. So any church, quote unquote, that does not proclaim the hard truth of scripture, the unpopular, unwelcome truth about sin, about mankind, about our depravity, about God and Christ and the cost of discipleship, cannot be hated by the world because they work very hard to avoid that. And the hard truth Jesus dished out to this large crowd was the fact that Christian discipleship and nepotism are mutually exclusive. Nepotism probably isn't the best word for this. Family patriotism might be a better word for it. But they don't go together. They can't coexist. We're talking about a favoritism towards your family. wherein you choose to please a family member instead of Christ, where their interests are not in conformity with one another. In other words, when family is your master, not Christ. Your master is the one you obey when push comes to shove. Christ's words here are similar to his words on the Sermon on the Mount when he said that you cannot serve two masters. You will love one and you will hate the other. But this principle is true regarding every other competing master and idol, not just money. It includes also family. And that is essentially what Jesus means when he speaks of hate in this context. These are startling words. You must hate your family? What do you mean? He's not commanding us, of course, to have malice in our hearts for our family. He's not encouraging us to sinful hatred of our family, where we show no concern for them or care for them. He's not telling us to ignore the second greatest commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. When it comes to family, and therefore treat family members as worse than everyone else, including your enemies, whom he told us to love. When he says that we must hate father and mother, he is not commanding us either to disobey the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. He is using the term hate to mean the opposite of a love that is characterized by allegiance, loyalty, and obedience. In other words, you hate your family when you refuse to let them be your master. Christ's rules are very strict here. Note the word cannot in verse 26. 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 wife, he cannot be my disciple. You cannot be his disciple unless you hate your family in the way that Christ requires you to. You cannot play a percentage game with Christ. You cannot give Christ 51% obedience and your family 49% and then claim that you really love Christ more than family because the scale tips slightly in favor of Christ. You cannot give Christ 80% and family 20%. You can't even give Christ 99% and family 1%. It doesn't work that way. It's all or nothing. There can only be one master in your life. It's impossible to have two. And your master is ultimately discovered to be the one who has the power to command you, whose approval you cannot bear to lose. If two people are on each side of you, and each one is demanding allegiance, you cannot give it to both of them. You must choose. It's an either or, not a both and. Unless the person on your right is an absolute clone of the person on your left, such that they speak with one voice and one mind, then you cannot serve both of them, and your true master is the one that you obey in the end. If the person on your right demands, to use a silly example, that you drink a glass of tea, and the person on the left demands that you do not, then your master is the one you obey. And of course, the demands are usually far more serious and with far greater consequences than that. whether to be a Christian or not, whether to go to church or not, what church to go to, how seriously to take the Bible, what beliefs to hold, how to implement those beliefs into daily practice. That's serious things like that. An unbeliever or a false disciple of Jesus may not even have warm affections and affectionate feelings toward their true master. The loyalty is characterized by fear oftentimes instead. But Jesus spoke to that as well when he said, do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. Matthew 10, 28. If you fear family more than God, if you fear the physical or emotional or financial consequences they will impose on you more than you fear the consequences that God will impose upon you, then you know that family is your master and your God. When push comes to shove, they get your obedience, not Christ. Family members can be quite demanding. They can be quite unsympathetic, lost ones, to your religious sensitivities. Away with your beliefs and your convictions and your Bible and your church. Here's what I want you to do. Now, you realize, of course, that anyone who treats you this way is not really your friend and doesn't really love you. even if they're a close family member. The one who makes demands like that loves himself, not you. He's not thinking about your soul and your conscience and what's good for you before God. He's thinking about what he or she wants, but the demands are quite strict. Threats are made, consequences are forthcoming. But consider, Christ is no less demanding, no less unyielding, He will not compromise with this. He will not accept you as his disciple. He will not admit you into his school unless you understand and agree that he is your only master. And there is no room for another. There is no room for compromise. There is no negotiations. It's Christ's way or the highway. You either submit to Christ as Lord and master or forget it. And he has that right. He is not some second rate two bit control freak. He is the God man. He is the creator of the world. He upholds you by the word of his power. He is the only Savior of men, and He is the one before whom we will all stand on Judgment Day. He's kind of a big deal. He can demand this kind of loyalty. And He didn't just say that you might have problems with unbelieving family members. He guaranteed it. count on it. He said he came to bring that kind of division within families. Matthew 10, 34 through 38, do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Some cannot accept this statement. For I came to set a man against his father. and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And the man's enemies will be the members of his own household. 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." He came to bring division. In families. He didn't come to bring peace in families. That's what he said. Those are his words. And I know this is difficult. This is actually part of what Christ calls the cross. That you must bear as his disciple. That's why Jesus says in verse 27, whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. This is all part of the cross. And remember that a cross is something that you get nailed to and suffocate to death on in a torturous demise. It's not pleasant. And neither is family conflict and strife. It's very painful, but it's part of the cross. Christ was put on the cross by his enemies, and you will be put on the cross by yours, including your family. But Christ is glorified when you cling to him and refuse to renounce him, even when your family rages and storms against you. 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. Again, this is not that we have feelings of malice or contempt for our family. It's that we have this extreme loyalty to Christ and love for him that will make our unbelieving and false Christian family members think that we hate them and perhaps say that we hate them. Think of the Muslim man who turns to Christ. He will be considered a traitor to his family and one who hates them and doesn't care about the damage such a conversion will have on them. And they have a point. And in truth, he does hate them in that way. Now the whole family is going to be despised. Now then, the parents will look like terrible parents to the community who didn't raise their child in the right way, didn't instruct him in the Muslim faith properly. It will be shame to them and didn't teach their child to respect his parents. The sermon audio prayer call we prayed not long ago for a young woman in a Muslim country whose family was incensed because of her conversion to Christ. And they were locking her in the house, if I recall correctly, and beating her, and tried to marry her off quickly to a Muslim man before she escaped. But they interpreted her conversion as hatred of them. The same kind of hatred. is true in our country as well, not just Muslim countries. If you have family members who are unbelievers, particularly if they're left-wingers, then they will despise you and your beliefs and seek to shame you or bully you into recanting them. The masks, while on, in one sense are off in another. The hatred is palpable and visceral. Unbelievers in this country are no longer interested in concealing their contempt for the Christian faith and those who hold it. Parents may disown children and cut them out of the inheritance. Unbelieving children may reject believing parents and refuse to have anything to do with them anymore. But if it's your husband or wife, oh my, that's the worst. Your spouse will fight you and undermine you. If you are raising young children, the unbelieving spouse will seek to undo anything you try to accomplish in rearing your children in the faith. He or she will often not want to come to church, or at least to the church that's sound. A fake one, a false one, one that gives entertainment, sure. He or she will not want the children to go to such a sound church. He or she will not want you tithing to such a church. He or she will not want you to cancel your television subscription or other such things or censor and be a guardian over it. And in our day with no fault divorce and with people being openly encouraged to ditch their marriage, it's a miracle if your spouse doesn't divorce you. but you must show your hatred for them, not by malice, not by maltreatment, but by an unflinching loyalty and obedience to Christ over against everything they demand that you do. In prophesying about the difficult days that would come to the disciples prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, Jesus said this in Matthew 10, 21 through 22, brother will betray brother to death and to father his child. And children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all because of my name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. And endure to the end in that context doesn't mean you won't die because he just said you will. It means to reach that death without recanting and caving, where you've still got your loyalty to Christ. If lawlessness should abound, and it did in Israel's last days, and there be no justice system that cares a whit about your rights as Christians, if instead there is a justice system, in scare quotes, that doesn't care a hell of beans about the First Amendment anymore, your religious liberty and your conscientious objections, if attacks on Christians are green-lighted, then all true disciples of Jesus will see people turn against them in vile ways very quickly, including in their own family. As far as persecution goes, I think there's little that can be more painful than this, family persecution. It's one thing to have a stranger hate you, someone you have no fondness for anyway, That's one thing for the government to hate you. There's usually no fondness there either. The family. We have this proverb, you know, proverb. Blood is thicker than water. Family ties are strong. We have a special word for family favoritism, nepotism. Why do we have that word? Because it's a thing. It's a recognized malady. There's a strong attachment to one's family, a bond. And we have these double standards whereby we say, you can criticize other people all you want, but don't you dare criticize my family. I can criticize them, but don't you dare do it. We see parents who are especially irate and aggressive when the ref makes a call against junior. This is not just anyone's child, that's my child that was born to me, that I nurtured and fed and changed and raised. Those parents aren't just somebody's parents, they're mine. Those aren't somebody's siblings, they're my siblings. And of course, this is all just self-love. I favor them because they're mine. in a very imbalanced way. This is not spirit-wrought love. This is flesh. All unbelievers have this. And this is exactly what has to be crucified in you if you would be a disciple of Jesus. Nepotism, or family patriotism, occurs in the church, unfortunately. Someone could be appointed to a position of deacon or elder, not because they meet the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3, but because they're related to someone in a position of influence or power. One of the biggest problems the church has is the number of false believers in its midst. How does that happen? Well, there's various causes and a false view of salvation tops the list, but family patriotism is a contributing factor. A young child makes a profession of faith and there really isn't any evidence to suggest that there's been a change of heart, but the parents insist that Jimmy should be baptized. Family patriotism occurs also when we're very strict and censorious against people outside of our family, but very patient and dismissive of the same behavior in our own family. Some wives have a tendency to hide behind the command to be submissive to their husband, forgetting that they're also required to obey the Lord's other commandments, not that one alone. So they have a nepotistic tendency to favor obedience to husband instead of to Christ and treat that submission to him as absolute instead of obedience to Christ as absolute. In the Old Testament, under a theocratic nation state of Israel, wherein the statutes were written by God himself, loyalty to God over family was statutorily required. Deuteronomy 13, 6 through 10 says, if your brother, your mother's son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods. whom neither you nor your fathers have known, of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end. You shall not yield to him or listen to him, and your eyes shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him, but you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death and afterwards the hand of all the people. So you shall stone him to death because he has sought to seduce you from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Wow. Can you imagine that? Picking up stones and stoning your wife or son or daughter or husband? You would have to be pretty sold out, committed to God to do something like that. You would have to have a very clear sense of priorities and loyalties. There would have to be a sense in which you say, as much as it pains me to do it, I will, for I love God more than you. And that loyalty requirement hasn't changed. in the New Testament. The main difference we see in the New Testament is that believers are usually on the other end of the death penalty. We're not stoning idolaters, they're stoning us. In fact, one could argue that in the Old Testament that was more often the case than not. For there is what the law says and then there's what the Israelites did. So you might remember Jesus saying a few things about Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who stones the prophets and those sent to her. The law tells us what's right and good. It doesn't have the power to change the heart though. Only Christ can do that. Jesus makes one more statement here in verse 26 that I don't want to miss. He says that you must hate your own life as well. By that, he means that we will value obedience to Christ above our own comfort, health, and life. As a disciple of Christ, our goal will be to please Him, not live a long time, or stay out of jail, or stay off the cross. You must hate your life. And that means that when the magistrates or judges tell us not to preach in Christ's name, we have to respectfully disobey them, saying, shall we obey God or men? That might get us jailed or whipped, as it did the apostles. But what do we care about that? We hate our life, after all. We have no regard for our life in a way that would undermine our obedience to Christ. When we're told by the powers that be that we're not to speak against certain sins, say homosexuality and transgenderism in our day, we're not to engage in conversion therapy like they're commanding in Canada, wherein we would counsel people to give up that life, then we disobey them. For we serve one master, Jesus Christ. And if that Obedience to Christ but disobedience to the human powers results in physical suffering or death, so be it. As disciples, we hate our life. If the powers tell us to quit meeting for church because we're spreading a deadly virus, and then they have the gall to invoke the Bible, The Bible they despise, have shown no interest or love for before. Love your neighbor. As if the second greatest commandment could be set against the fourth and first commandments. Then we disobey them and meet anyway, whatever the consequences may be. And why? Because we love God and we hate our life. We do like Daniel did after he received an unjust decree. Don't pray to any other god but King Darius for 30 days. 30 days to stop the spread. That's all we're asking, 30 days. Can't you play ball with that? Did Daniel play ball? He did not play ball. He continued on with his religious exercises and prayers as he had before time. And he was thrown to the lions. Now he was not appointed to die on that case, but we need to be prepared for that. Paul summed up the attitude we should all have toward our life, this hatred of our life that Jesus spoke of in Acts 20, 22 through 24, where he spoke to the elders in Ephesus. And he said, and now behold, bound by the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself so that I may finish my course in the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God. I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself. Even though I am promised afflictions in the cities ahead, and in Jerusalem in particular, what do I care about that? I hate my life. and the way that that's meant. So let me be as clear as I know how to be. The Lord did not call you or me from darkness to light and transfer you from the devil's kingdom to his own so that you could live long and prosper, so that you could be healthy, so that you could be safe. He called you to hate your life, take up your cross and follow him. And it is, to be mistaken on that point, is eternal ruin. It is not to be a disciple of Jesus after all. In verses 28 to 32 here, Jesus tells us that we should think about the demands of discipleship before we sign up. This should be clearly understood. When you join Christ's school of disciples, you're not joining high society. You're not joining the cool group, the rich and famous, the ruling class. On the contrary, you are joining the hated class. You must hate your family and you'll be hated by them. You must hate your own life and health. You must take up your cross, your electric chair, and carry it around with you for the day when it needs to be plugged in. What Jesus says in these next verses is that you need to soberly consider all this and take it into account and ask yourself, am I ready to be a disciple of Jesus if this is what it requires? Am I willing to lose my family and have them turn on me? Am I willing to lose my freedom and my health and my life to follow this man, Jesus? Or am I just interested in fire insurance? For which one of you, he says, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So Jesus gives us two analogies to illustrate the need for honest assessment, building a tower and a king going to war against another army. And in both, he is saying the world knows how to make these assessments. They know how to take inventory and see if they have what it takes to get a job done. A man who builds a tower doesn't start construction, generally, when he only has the money or goods to complete a foundation and nothing else. Otherwise, Jesus says, everyone ridicules him. Likewise, a king doesn't usually go to war without carefully thinking the matter through to determine whether this is a war he can win. If he has 10,000 troops and his enemy has 20,000, The odds are not good, and he wouldn't go to war unless there was some other reason for hope or confidence, like better weaponry, the element of surprise, an ally that's promising to come and join him, or strong faith that God is with him. But barring such things, the wise course of action is to send for terms of peace and not fight a losing battle. But the point is, he wouldn't go to war without making the necessary pre-war assessment. And that's exactly what Jesus is urging upon us, any would-be disciple of his. He says this to large crowds following along. It's as if he's saying to this large group of people, do you really know what this is about? Do you know what you're in for and following me? Do you know what you have to give up? Are you sure you want to be my disciple? Now in any large crowds moving along in one direction, it's the easiest thing in the world to go along with the crowd. Moving in that direction, going with the flow. There's really no hard decisions there. No crucifixion of the flesh there and moving with the crowd. But a large crowd moving together in one direction may be a mirage, especially when it comes to large crowds following Jesus. How many of these people had any idea that being Jesus' disciple, what that was about? How many of them knew that the sense of popularity that they might temporarily be feeling? Wow, look at all of us. together following Jesus. It is cool to follow Jesus. This is where it's at. But that was a mirage. How many of them would disappear in the morning mist when the heat of persecution arose? And Jesus, in the last verse, And the text says, so then none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. And since that's a summary statement of all that he has just said, it appears there that possessions is really a catch-all term for family relations, health, the desire for self-preservations, and anything that would be a stumbling block and hindrance to discipleship. You have to give it all up to be Christ's disciple. To be a Christian is not like joining 4-H, or the Boy Scouts, or an after school club. It's even more comprehensive than joining the military. It is to enter a covenant wherein the man you claim to follow is master and Lord. It is to be a bond slave of him. It's not the same life you had before with some fire insurance added in. It's not the same life you had before with a little more church attendance added in. It's slavery to Jesus Christ. Pleasant slavery. Less slavery, no less. This is all sobering. It's a bucket of cold water in the face. Give up my family. Give up my life. Keep this in mind. What's the alternative? The alternative is gain the whole world and forfeit your soul. In hell. So it would appear that you can either lose your family, your unbelieving family now, lose your possessions now, lose your health and life now, and enjoy riches in heaven with God forever. Or you can foolishly cling to the things of this world and then lose them all anyway the moment you die. Either way, you lose them. Only in the latter instance, you lose your soul in hell forever. With Christ, you gain everything that matters. So in that sense, like Livingston, the missionary to Africa said, I never made a sacrifice. Well, you read his book and you see all that he suffered and you see how his daily bread was suffering over and over and over again. And you say, what? You've never made a sacrifice. What he was saying is that what we gain through Christ so overwhelms and overcompensates the loss in this life that it cannot be justifiably called a sacrifice. whereby I gave up so much for so little. It's not that way. You gain everything with Christ, everything that matters. Let's pray. Father, whenever we are confronted by these texts, which are very sobering and lay out very strict requirements and demands and terms. For discipleship, we are mindful of our own frailty and feebleness. We ask that you would strengthen us and that our resolve would be strengthened. Lord, to live for you and to not live for anybody else, and to serve you as master, and to have no other masters. Help us by your grace, in Jesus' name, amen.