Today's sermon will continue our gospel sermon series through the gospel of Luke. If you have your Bibles, we'd like to turn to Luke chapter 14, beginning in verse 25. We'll read verses 25 through 35 this morning. The name of the sermon, again, is The High Cost of Discipleship in the Kingdom. Luke 14, 25 to 35. Let me preface the reading of God's Word with an introductory comment. The text of scripture that we'll look at today from Dr. Luke's gospel is extremely challenging and sobering for God's people. Of all the many challenging sayings of Jesus, this appears to be one of the most difficult sayings of them all. In fact, there is no one who could respond to Jesus' teaching here without doing so in reliance upon the grace of God found in Jesus Christ and his gospel. Jesus teaches in what I'm about to read, the high cost of discipleship that must be considered when following him. Jesus asked for our all, simply put. And I want everyone to hear that. Because of God's loving and electing grace to his people, God gives all to his people in Jesus. So they'll give all to him. So Jesus today in our passage will speak of relationships, bearing our crosses, renouncing all that we possess in order to revel in all that God has given to us in Christ. and revealed through His kingdom. We should learn again that the Lord asks for everything that we have when we become His disciples. There should be nothing that we hold back from Him and His Lordship. Let him who have ears hear. We shouldn't forget our context either. In chapter 14, verses 15 to 24, our last sermon from Luke, you remember Jesus spoke of many in Israel who had been invited to this glorious wedding banquet of God through Jesus Christ, and they had rejected the invitation. They were making up perhaps legitimate excuses, but these legitimate excuses had become illegitimate priorities. And so there was something before in priority. They're seeking first Christ in his kingdom. And so in light of this, in our context today, Jesus goes on to push the crowds a little further who are presently accompanying him to turn from their sins and to look to him by faith. I want you to notice what I read three times. Jesus says something negative today, three times. Three times, he says, you cannot be my disciple. Notice this. If you do not fully reorient yourselves around Jesus and his kingdom and reliance upon his grace, Jesus says, you cannot be my disciple. This is not a positive message. This is not for the sinfully faint of heart. Warning. This is God's word. Let us hear the word of the Lord and let us heed the word of the Lord. Luke 14, 25. 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 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's 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's able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand. 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 of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, How shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use, either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Thus ends the reading of God's word. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for Christ and his word. We ask as your people that you would teach us this day, instruct us, help us, O Lord. In reliance upon your grace, Help us to hear and to heed this message of Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Today, Jesus teaches us on the cost of discipleship. The first thing he speaks of is hating one's family. In verse 26a, he says, if someone doesn't hate their own family, he cannot be my disciple. Now, I want you to notice that there's a scene change here from our previous text. Dr. Luke changes our scene by telling us that Jesus is surrounded by large crowds. This is how Dr. Luke tells us oftentimes in his gospel that there's a scene change, is through the crowds, saying that Jesus is speaking again to the crowds. The crowds are surrounding him as he continues on his trip to Jerusalem. The crowds also are there to remind us that although most earthly and sinful leaders in this world want as many as possible to follow them, Jesus does not desire this kind of superficial following. Jesus teaches the people to consider and count the high cost of discipleship and the allegiance to Him that is required before starting the journey of seeking after Him as Teacher and Lord. You see, people of God, many in the crowd were just following along, listening to Him, playing it secure, by not fully committing themselves to him due to the danger of Roman authorities or Jewish authorities. In light of this, Jesus is challenging those who are merely following him visibly to consider what it means to truly follow him as a disciple. And so that makes us answer, he says, I cannot be a disciple. We have to define disciple. What does it mean? Let me do that first. Disciple. What is a disciple? Jesus is getting at the question, what is a true disciple? What does it look like to be my disciple? Not a disciple of someone else. Not a disciple of Rome. Not a disciple of the philosophers. Not a disciple of the politicians. A disciple of me. What does it look like? The Greek word for disciple means a learner. It means a pupil. The word was used in ancient Greek to refer to one who sat at a master teacher's feet. The implication of the word is that to be a true disciple of Jesus, that is to show forth that you're not just saying it in word or you're not just visibly close to Jesus as the crowds were seeing what he had done. To be a true disciple is one to live and obey God as Jesus teaches you. So to be a true disciple of Jesus is to live with ultimate allegiance to Jesus. As he summarizes it in John 14, 15, he says, if you love me, You'll keep my commandments. I want to say that this is not maybe at first glance, we think of this disciple, some super disciple, the kind of disciple that Jesus is speaking of here is not some kind of super disciple type. These are not merely the great disciples of the faith that Jesus is describing here. They're not those who we might consider super mature because they might have been ordained or joined monasteries to totally devote themselves to God. The word disciple here, people of God, is an ordinary Christian who claims the name of Christ. We may think in light of this challenging teaching of Jesus that it's only for a select few, but all Christians, by God's grace, can follow him in the manner described by Jesus because of his grace and his Holy Spirit. Hating our family? What does that mean? I thought we were to love one another. Husbands, love your wives. Jesus says, love God and your neighbor. Hate your family? Hating one's family, what is the principle here? Jesus is saying that the kingdom and the kingdom found in Jesus changes our most basic identity as part of a family network and our most important allegiances and loyalties in the world. If one is a true disciple of Jesus, Jesus will be more important than your family. Think about it. The family is the most basic social unit. What could Jesus mean by saying to hate one's family? Although the family is the most basic social union in the world, it was given at creation with the coming of the kingdom of God in Jesus. There's a greater, more important family made up of disciples of Jesus Christ, that is believers. We want to be reminded in light of this, that the kingdom of God is not a democracy. God calls his people in Jesus to bow their knee to Christ, who is messianic king. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God alone. So a call to the kingdom is to identify oneself as a kingdom disciple, is to say this with regard to one's family. I am a servant of the Lord of the kingdom. I am dedicated wholeheartedly to him before all things, even the most basic and important of social relationships in this world, such as my family. I will march when Jesus gives me orders. Nothing shall stop me from following and obeying Jesus Christ, my Lord, including my own family. Jesus is saying not to place this most important and sacred basic family unit before following Him, essentially. Don't place the family before Him. Don't allow one's family, one's belief systems, one's family's opinions, one's family's priorities, a family's typical sins and practices. or even continuing the family name to get in the way of following Jesus Christ as Lord. You see, it should be remembered that in the ancient world, to follow Jesus would have meant to forsake one's family sometimes. It's like comparing today with modern Muslim or Asian countries, where the whole family is dedicated to other gods. To claim the name of Christ is to forsake and hate the family in order to do so. So Jesus is saying this most basic, this most important thing, such as a family, this most where we find our greatest loyalty and allegiance, or we should. That it must be subordinate to loyalty and devotion to him. And so if any part of the family gets in the way of following Jesus Christ, we must live as though we hate them. What is this hatred about? Well, again, It's not one of affection, biblically speaking. The word hatred that's used here in Hebrew and Greek is not one necessarily of affection. It's a disavowal of primary allegiance to one's kin. That's what he's saying. In Jesus' world, there was a high cultural value placed on the family. And Jesus is saying that even this important relationship to family must never come before Him in His messianic mission. You see, Jesus is using the word hate, if you will, rhetorically. And the call to hate simply means to love less. The call to hate simply means to love less. In fact, in Genesis 29, 30 to 31, this is how we're told with regard to Jacob and Rachel. It says, Jacob went into Rachel and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years. He loved Rachel more than Leah. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. He loved her less. He hated her. So Jesus teaches us to love God and our neighbor as ourself. He teaches us to honor our father and our mothers. He teaches us for spouses to love one another. So what hatred means here is that we're not to love our family members as much as we love him. It means to love them less in light of Jesus and his kingdom, not allowing our allegiance to them to be greater than our allegiance to him. Again, a Greek professor says it like this with regard to the word hatred. Unlike our English words for love and hate, Greek, particularly when influenced by Hebrew or Old Testament backgrounds, is here often use these words not to refer to an emotion, but to a commitment to speak of a person to whom one was more or less loyal. So you love Jesus and you hate your family, you love Jesus more. So the kingdom of God revealed in Jesus is the most important endeavor goal. And we must allow God's teachings to us in Christ to form and shape our beliefs, our opinions, change our priorities, even the priorities of our family, to fit Jesus's mission and to sanctify us in the typical sins and practices of our families. Christ is to be our first love before all things, people of God, even our own family. As Jesus says it in Matthew 10, 1037, as we read, whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves son and daughter more than me is not worthy of me. See, people have got an anti world in an anti family world in which we live. It is proper as Christians to place an importance and a focus on the family, particularly in our role of raising godly children to be true disciples of Christ's kingdom. But we're not to place our family before Jesus Christ. Some Christians, frankly, seem to love their family more than they love Christ in how they reveal their priorities. Oftentimes, in an effort to promote the family's well-being, particularly the well-being and success of our children, we idolatrously place them even before Jesus Christ himself. We're called by God to love our children and to place their spiritual well-being first by showing them the great commitment it takes to be true disciples of Christ and his kingdom. One pastor pointed out very well He said, with regard to many imbalanced Christians here who desire very much to promote the family in an anti-family world as they should, they become imbalanced. He says, we miss the mark of raising godly children for the kingdom when we put their development athletically, intellectually, culturally, artistically, socially before their spiritual well-being. He says, we fall short when we spend more time in the car in a day shuttling them from games and lessons than we do in a month in prayer for their souls. He goes on to say, by comparison, our lives reveal that we hate God and we love our children disproportionately and that we're not Jesus's disciples. Here's the good news. Can you find good news in that? Yes. The truth is that if we hate our own family, people of God, that is, if we love them less than we love Christ, If we give him our full allegiance as parents and spouses, as children and siblings, then we will be, by God's grace, be able to love our family more. That is another kingdom paradox. Let me say it again. If we hate our family, that is, if we love them less than Christ, if we give him our full allegiance as parents and spouses, as children and siblings, then we will, by God's grace, be able to love our family more, as God has called us to do. And this love is ultimately shown by how we teach them about Christ and his kingdom and the importance of giving up all for him. And so Jesus pushes the crowds and he pushes us today, challenges us. He says, if you do not hate your own family, you cannot be my disciple. And then he goes on to say in verse twenty six B, another cost of discipleship is hating one's own life. And twenty six B. Again, the question is probably asked, It was in my preparation. What does Jesus mean to hate one's life? Did not God give us life? And shouldn't we appreciate what God has given to us? Hating one's own life, the principle here is that the kingdom changes our most basic understanding of ourselves as people, that our identity and our vocation is not first, but in Christ. The hatred that Jesus speaks here is not some kind of self abhorrence of oneself. It's a it's a call to finding our identity as a person in the life that's found in Jesus. As we learned above, it's to love Jesus more than we love our very own life. Think about what a life is. Life is sure it's not being dead, but life is more than that. Life is consistent. All of our privileges. It consists in all of our passions, our priorities that are part of who we are. That is our identity and make up what we do. That is our our vocation. Life is the collective term for all that we are in this world, whether we're speaking socially or positionally or financially. And so Jesus is warning us against the idolatry that's so easy to slip into when we put our life and the important things in our life before Jesus. Remember what Jesus taught earlier in Luke 9, verse 24? He says, whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Another kingdom paradox that's found in Jesus Christ and is resolved in Jesus Christ. I want to say to the glory of God that what Jesus is teaching here, the only way to accept this and to be obedient to it and to ultimately fall follow Jesus is by a sovereign work of God's grace in regeneration. We must be regenerated. We must be. worked on by his spirit to be able to have ears to hear and feet to do what Jesus is calling us to do. This is a hard message that he's giving to all. It's sometimes called some of the hard sayings of Jesus. But we are able to do this by his grace. You see, what Jesus is doing here is he's pushing many mere nominal believers, those who are just Christian in name. who are not truly committed to following him to consider again what he's demanding of them when they seek to follow him. We all want to know what other people's expectations are. It's important in pastoral counseling for me to talk with the future husband and wife of what the expectations of marriage are for each other. This is what God's expectations are for his people as disciples. That's what he's saying. We dare not misunderstand what God demands of us. These are his expectations revealed in Jesus. And hard as they may seem, they're doable by his grace, in reliance upon his grace, by his powerful spirit that raised him from the dead. And so he goes on in verse 27 to say, one must bear one's own cross, bearing one's own cross. The Greek literally reads in verse 27, Whoever is not bearing and is not coming after me, because both verbs are on the present ongoing tense. You see, the focus here on bearing one's cross is not merely the beginning of one's discipleship following of Jesus, but what one is doing now in the present tense with regard to Jesus and his kingdom. That's what Jesus is saying. Cross bearing here primarily, essentially, is this. Cross bearing that Jesus is calling his disciples to is a perpetual dying. And daily self-denial for the cause of Christ in his kingdom, as he says earlier in Luke nine, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. You see, as God gives his all to us, to his people and the person and work of Jesus Christ, so God in Christ demands that we too bear our crosses. Our crosses are following Jesus daily and bearing the cross that God sovereignly places upon us. Sometimes we compare our cross bearing with others. Well, their cross is much lighter than mine. But God knows exactly where you are. He knows your heart better than you know yourself. And He knows what sovereignly, what kind of cross to place upon you to make you more like Jesus. And we must understand that that is our cross to bear. See, our cross-bearing is ultimately in being identified with Jesus Christ and being treated like Jesus Christ because of this identification, because of this privileged identification. Now, I want you to understand something. In Jesus's time, this cross-bearing would not have been heard by the crowds in such a metaphoric manner as we might hear it today. You see, when the crowds heard what Jesus was saying here, what did they hear? They would have understood that he was saying, you cannot be my disciple if you do not forsake your allegiance to Rome and family and be willing to suffer the most heinous death on the cross for my sake. If you're not willing to say Caesar is not Lord, Jesus is Lord, and go to the cross, you cannot be my disciple. In Jesus' time period, about AD 6, the Romans crucified hundreds of followers of the rebel Judas the Golanite. And for the inhabitants of Palestine, crucifixion was a common spectacle both before and after that date. So the words of the Lord probably made the hearers feel that He demanded that whosoever wished to follow Him had to deny himself to such an extent that he'd be even prepared to suffer the most cruel and ignominious death in the course of following Jesus. It wasn't a what if. It was if I follow him and make myself a real disciple of the kingdom, I will die, probably. You see, it was the cross. Bearing the cross was a voluntary acceptance of martyrdom. Isn't this foreign to us? This teaching is foreign to us sometimes. We're surprised when we read in our Bibles that Jesus says this. But we shouldn't be. See, people of God, sometimes, as American Christians, we can't see very clearly. We're blessed, and we're not as clear, perhaps, in our understanding of Jesus's requirements. Jesus is saying, bearing the cross, not wearing the cross. Not to be in any way condemning, but you understand that it's interesting to notice how many people cherish crosses that we wear around our necks or our own pieces of jewelry we have. It's an interesting way of showing one's devotion to Jesus. I can't imagine anyone in the ancient Roman world wearing one. And this is not to be condemning again and don't have to take take it off later. But think about it for a second. The ancient cross was a symbol of shame. It was a symbol of torture. It was a symbol of death. It was the most heinous death one could imagine. It was a public shame reserved for criminals and slaves. To wear one's cross on a necklace in the ancient world would have been, seemed strange at best. It'd be like us today wearing a hangman's noose or an electric chair made of gold around our necks. So crosses are emblems of humiliation, shame, suffering. But paradoxically, God even turns that around by His grace. It's the cross of Christ where we find the salvation of our souls and the forgiveness of our sins, where Jesus laid down his life for us. So I understand that the cross means something different to you today by his grace. But the cross we are to bear is not merely wearing it. That's what we must understand. It's in bearing it, showing forth in our lives and our commitment to the kingdom that we really are dead to sin and alive to God and Jesus. It's not wrong to wear the cross. It's wrong to merely wear the cross and say you're a Christian and not bear the cross. The cross we bear is a living symbol and picture of being dead to this present age and dead to any other ultimate allegiance except Jesus Christ and his kingdom. The cross is a picture of our discipleship and that our new kingdom identity as disciples is being identified with Christ and his suffering and his cross bearing. We must remember that when we feel and we know that we're bearing the cross of Christ in this life, that we realize that we are being privileged to be identified with the life and the death of Jesus Christ himself. You see, this is what the Apostle Paul means in Romans eight, where he talks about your heirs of all things through Christ and that you're adopted as sons and children. But then he goes on to say that because of this reality, we are sufferers with Christ. And that this suffering, this cross bearing helps us to hope in the in not in the present age, but in the world to come. The cross bearing helps us not to put our roots too deeply here, not to build bigger barns, but to meditate on the future life where sin shall be removed, where Christ the King shall rule and be in the midst of his people and where all of our tears shall be wiped away from our eyes. You see, this is cross-bearing is what we might call discipleship discipline, discipleship discipline. It's that God allows us to bear our cross. He privileges us to bear our cross, not only to identify us with Jesus Christ, but to make us more like him. You see, the discipleship discipline that God gives us is not merely for a sin you can point out in your life. You remember when the man born blind, they asked him, was this because of his sin or his father's sin? And Jesus says, neither, it was for the glory of God. It's not necessary that we say, someone's bearing a cross, I think it's because they sinned this way. No, God gives all His children discipleship discipline. all his children, discipleship, discipline. Why? Because of a particular sin? No! Because of a sinful condition that we all have and that can only be remedied by his sovereign care in giving us a cross to bear that will conform us to Christ's likeness and make us like him and more and more look like him. And what we say and do, that's such a thrill. It should be exciting. That's the greatest thing you could hope for, is to look like Christ. Think about oftentimes we want to be like other people. Don't you want to be like Christ? Romans 8 tells us in verse 29, those whom God intimately foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. What Jesus is saying here, what Paul is saying, I should say, about Jesus is that we're elected, we're foreordained, we're predestined not merely to heaven, but to look like heaven itself before we get there. That we are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. He who began a good work in us will complete it on the day of Christ Jesus. Is cross-bearing hard? Yes. Is it possible to endure? Yes. God teaches us elsewhere in Scripture that His grace is sufficient for everything He calls us to endure. The Apostle Paul experienced a great deal of suffering, a great deal of cross-bearing in his life that made him more like Christ. And in 2 Corinthians 12, we read this, that Paul pleaded three times to the Lord that his condition would leave him, that that particular cross that God had sovereignly granted him would leave him. And I encourage you to pray also that God would lift your cross at times. But God responds to Paul and says, My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. I will boast the more gladly of my weaknesses, Paul says, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, Paul says, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I'm weak, I am strong. People of God, can you honestly say in Christ that you're content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. Can you say in reliance upon the grace of God that when you're humbled before God and man, then you're truly strong? Imagine going around like Paul rejoicing in our weakness. People got oftentimes were tempted to trivialize our cross bearing our cross becomes anything that's an inconvenience for us. We dare not do that. Cross-bearing is a serious matter that has to do with giving up our lives possibly. Really. You see, we sometimes say, well, my cross is an inconvenience that I must deal with. I wish that I had a roomier car. I wish I had a bigger home. We like air conditioning when it's hot. That's my cross to bear. We had a lot of traffic to experience on the way to the office ad infinitum, ad nauseam. That's not cross-bearing. That's trivial. Let me say this. As American Christians, cross-bearing is not necessarily related to mere inconveniences. Our cross-bearing is experiencing humbling weaknesses such as sicknesses, insults for the name of Christ, hardships because of our stand and identity as disciples of Christ, persecutions because of Christ, calamities that God allows to come into our lives, and sometimes martyrdom. This is much greater than mere inconveniences. Bearing our cross is assigned to us by God in sovereignty. Bearing our cross is endured peacefully and joyfully by God's grace. Bearing our cross is possible, although difficult, because we're being stretched in our sanctification and conformity to Christ's likeness. And bearing our cross is evidence that we're truly children of the living God. So Jesus says in light of this, count the cost of what it means to follow him before you commit yourself wholly in word, thought and deed. Jesus calls us to give up our closest relationship, to lose our own lives, even unto death and renounce all that we have. How can we do this? Only by God's grace that's found in Jesus Christ. This is not a message, as I said earlier, for the faint of heart. This is only for those who've experienced a powerful work of regeneration, resurrection and have died with Christ and who are now raised up and seated with him. But let us pray to have the mindset the apostle Paul did in Philippians three that I read earlier. Paul says, I don't want to find a righteousness that comes through the law by my own works. But he says, I mean, I want to know the power. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. And I want to share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection of the dead. That's what bearing the cross is. May we not trivialize it. May we not underestimate God's grace in our enduring it. And so Jesus goes on in verses 28 to 32 to say, you've heard what I have, what I've had to say so far. Let me give you two brief, many parables to tell you what it means to count the cost. Jesus focuses in both of these brief parables to illustrate true kingdom discipleship and reveal whether one has adequate resources to succeed in finishing the course before them. That's the point of both the parables. One is building a tower and one is defeating an enemy. If one is not with the adequate resources required, the results in tragically in being mocked. And in surrender to the enemy. Jesus says that following him in his kingdom is like these kingdom parables. And so the question we want to ask ourselves is, do we have the adequate resources to follow Jesus as a disciple? Do we have the grace of God found in Christ alone? The greatest resources, the greatest resource needed to finish the course and run the race of discipleship is the grace of God found in Jesus Christ alone. The resources are not found in your family, Jesus is saying. It's not found in your identity as a person or what you do. It's not found in your possessions. Your more than adequate resources are found in Jesus Christ. And so he talks about building a tower. And what does this parable mean? He's saying. He's asking the crowds and we, have you counted the cost of discipleship? Are you merely a Christian in word? Are you unable to finish the course because you do not know Christ or His grace? Are you one who will be mocked and even will cause Jesus to be mocked in His exalted glory because you claim the name of Christ and you do not truly know Him and His grace? Only by the grace of God can we finish the course. Do you have the adequate resources? The second about going to war and ending up having to surrender to the enemy is the question that Jesus is asking is, can you afford to pay the price of refusing Jesus's call? So Jesus teaches that whosoever desires to follow him in these parables should first make sure whether they're prepared to pay the full price. And that means a willing, full denial of oneself to the utmost for his sake. In verse 33, Jesus, in a way, summarizes what he said before. He says, if one does not renounce all that one has, then he cannot be my disciple. One able scholar translated verse 33 this way, people of God, he said, So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not bid farewell to all you have. Another Greek scholar said similarly, or translated this way, well, similarly, then every one of you who does not say goodbye to all he has cannot be a disciple of mine. The Greek word for renounce or in the King James, it's forsake. Means to set apart, it means to separate oneself, it means to withdraw oneself from It means to renounce. It means to forsake the principle here that Jesus is speaking of renouncing all that one has. It is that the kingdom changes our attraction and our idolatry toward possessions and makes us ready and willing to part with them at any time. Let me say it again, the kingdom of God in Jesus changes our attraction and idolatry toward possessions and makes us ready and willing to part with them at any time. As Jesus said, remember in Matthew 5, Matthew 6, 21, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Jesus is not telling us to necessarily to sell all that we have and live in the desert or in caves or monasteries as hermits or monks. You know, the funny thing or the interesting thing about this passage is we can overestimate what Jesus is saying and do too much and we can underestimate what he's saying and do too little. Overestimation means to literally go and sell all you have, live in the deserts and caves and monasteries as hermits and monks. Underestimating is not listen and not hear what he has to say. And the seriousness of it, the hardness that he's making. What he's telling us is that as a disciple, we must daily acknowledge that all we have belongs to Christ. And if it belongs to Christ, we're then only stewards. And if we have to part with it, we have to part with it. You see, being a disciple of Jesus, he's saying, is that recognizing that all one has in possessions, all that one is, including one's own precious desires or plans, ideals, interests, that this belongs ultimately to God and has been granted to the disciple as stewardship. What stewardship? Stewardship is taking care of another's possessions. A steward does not actually own the possessions, property or whatever it is that they take care of for someone else. What we have is what God has given to us, people of God, and we're to be good stewards of these things. They're not to own us. They should not be so important to us that we're willing to forsake Christ and his kingdom in order to keep them. People not only lost their lives in Jesus's world, those in the crowds who've been scratching their head would have heard him say, OK, I've got a cross. My family, my mom and dad's not going to like this thing about me following Jesus. Got to die on the cross in shame. I was so hoping for a nicer legacy than that. And then they're hearing. I mean, I can't have I have to be willing to part with everything, possibly the Roman government will come and take it all away from me. The belongings that God has entrusted to us must be understood with the right perspective, their gifts. God has given us gifts for our enjoyment in Jesus. But in God's sovereignty, the Lord may give. And he may take away. And we're called as disciples to say, blessed be the name of the Lord, as Job did. You see, belongings in this world prevent many from following Jesus Christ. Humanly speaking, they're unwilling. Some are unwilling to give up and renounce all that they have to follow him. As Jesus says in other portions of Scripture, how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. He says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle and for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Why, humanly speaking, why is it so difficult? They don't trust Christ. They don't trust Christ. They trust what they have to get them by at the end of the day. You see, trusting Christ is a A very important aspect of saving faith. It's what defines faith. There are three aspects of saving faith. There's a knowledge. There's an assent to that knowledge. And there's a trust. Some acknowledge that God exists and they believe that Jesus is a mirror or he's a good man. They believe he might even be a good savior. Some will go to Jesus or God when they're sad or need of hope in their lives. Some will assent that what the Bible teaches is true and helpful to their lives. That is, they assent to the truths of the Scripture. Hey, I didn't know it said that! That's wise! But what they won't do is trust Him. Trusting God in Jesus Christ is an important aspect of saving faith that many do not have. Many who call themselves Christians or disciples of Jesus might have a knowledge of God and his word. They might even assent to these truths. But on a day to day basis, they don't find it easy to trust God and his will and sovereignty. And that's why Jesus says the minds that we must have is just merely stewards of what he gives us, not to let the things own us. We must renounce them, be willing to say goodbye to them if he says that we must. He doesn't say that to all. You remember, Zacchaeus paid back his debts. He was still a wealthy man. But there was a rich, young ruler who Jesus told to sell it all. The reason he called him particularly to that past was because he knew that was what was preventing him from being exiled. He's not calling all to do that, but he does call some. And so Jesus ends with this epigram or this mini parable on salt in verses 34 and 35. What we're looking at here today, people of God, is that the important thing is that whoever desires to follow Jesus must be inwardly free from worldly mindedness, covetousness, and selfishness. And we must be wholly devoted to him. And this is only by his grace. So he tells this little epigram. Now, my dictionary defines an epigram as any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed. That's what this would be. It's a mini parable to look at versus thirty four to thirty five. I'll close with this and I'll read it. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. See, this serves as a conclusion to what Jesus is teaching here on the high cost of discipleship. If one is not characterized by the qualities he's described as a true disciple, then one is not a disciple. Jesus is not teaching that one can lose their salvation and using the language of being thrown out, but he's teaching that some who claim to be true disciples are not really disciples by the way they think and live. As Jesus soberly says to some who claim to know him in Matthew seven, depart from me, I never knew you, even though they prophesied in his name. And they did many deeds in his name. Jesus did not know and know them. To put it in another way, as Jesus has said, or as he's done three times in the passage, if one's priority is found primarily in their family, if one's identity is found in what one does as a vocation or in what one has, if one is unwilling to part with their possessions, then they are not. That is, they cannot be his disciples. That's what he's saying. That's what the salt thing is about. Let me try to help out a little bit if I can. You see, salt can be used as a seasoning, as we understand it, can be used as a fertilizer and a preservative. Salt is good and useful when it's salty. If it loses its saltiness, you only have pepper. There's no salt. It's not worth anything. And that's why Jesus says it's not good for even the manure pile if it's not salty. It can't serve as fertilizer or preservative. One who's not willing to forsake everything, Jesus is saying, to follow him as a disciple is like salt that is not salty. It's worthless. Like unsalty salt that is worthless, so are half-hearted disciples who've not really considered the high cost of discipleship. And so, Jesus ends, as I will. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. As the people of God, we must soberly consider the high cost of following Jesus. We must consider how much God has given to us in the life, the death, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ for us. Believers or disciples or those who have put their trust in him are heirs of all things in Jesus Christ. There's nothing in this world, even your life, that can compare to the great glory to be revealed in the day that Jesus returns. There's no riches here that can satisfy as much as Jesus Christ. The things of this world, you'll remember, are open for the thief to come in and steal, for rust to age and to wear out, and for the moth to destroy. But he who seeks first the kingdom and all its righteousness, all the things that are needed physically and spiritually, will be given. See, God has given to us as his people all things in Jesus Christ. We're more than conquerors through him who loved us, as Romans 8, 31 to 39 says. We need grace daily, people of God. We need to seek God's grace daily to follow Jesus as his disciples. And the good news is the grace that we need is found in Christ alone. Even the grace we need to follow him is provided for us. It's not only a grace that we have been granted in the beginning, it's a grace that meets us each day as God provides for what we need to continue to walk and to keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of faith. Seek God's grace in Jesus Christ and find in Jesus Christ the eternal hope of a true disciple. But as Jesus says, consider the cost. If you're not ready to forsake all other allegiances and renounce all your worldly possessions, renounce all your desires, your plans, your dreams, then you cannot be Jesus' disciple. You have to renounce all you have. But seek the Lord while He may be found. He's found in Jesus Christ. Trust in Him today. Thanks be to God for His Word. May He give us the grace to be obedient to what we have heard. Let us pray. Our father and our God, we thank you for the great grace that's revealed in Jesus Christ. We thank you that in Jesus, he makes clear the expectations you have of your disciples. Help us, O Lord, only in reliance upon your grace can we do these things. We thank you that Christ is exalted in making us able to and willing to believe and to trust in you and that Christ is busy through his word and his sacraments. through prayer and ever interceding for his people to help them to get to the finish line, as he did. Help us as the apostle Paul to run the race with perseverance, beating our bodies into shape as we resist our flesh and realize who we are as those who've been resurrected and seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Help us, O Lord, to find our identity in you. Lord, help us to renounce all that we have, to be willing to depart from whatever you might call us to. Help us to bear our crosses daily, not trivialize them, not merely wearing them. And help us, O Lord, to love our most important families, our most important people in the world to us. Help us to love them less than we do Jesus Christ. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.