It Costs To Be A Disciple Series

3. To Follow Jesus You Must Count the Cost (14:28-35)

I. To Follow Jesus You Must Hate Your Family (14:25-26)

First, to follow Jesus you must hate your family.

Jesus had presumably finished dining at the home of the ruler of the Pharisees and he was on the road again. Now great crowds accompanied him (14:25a). Twelve of them were his apostles and many others wanted to be his disciples. Disciples were people who literally followed a teacher and put his teaching into practice in their lives. They did so because they valued his teaching and his ministry.

But Jesus was aware that the people following him had all kinds of motives for doing so. Some wanted to see him perform miracles. Others thought that perhaps his claims to being the Christ meant that he was going to overthrow the Roman government and restore the Jewish kingdom. Others were just along for the ride, so to speak, because in the presence of Jesus there was always something interesting happening.

Jesus knew that his mission was to seek and to save the lost (cf. Luke 19:10). That is, he had come to reconcile sinful men and women with a holy God. And although the act of being reconciled to God was received as a gift of God’s grace, the result of that reconciliation would require a life-long commitment. In fact, this life-long commitment involved three separate criteria, the first of which is: to follow Jesus you must hate your family. This is how Jesus expressed it in verse 26 when 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.”

Does this statement startle you? Does Jesus really say that to follow him you must hate your family? Yes, Jesus clearly did say that. But what does it mean?

Let us remember that Jesus affirmed our biblical duty to love God (Matthew 22:37), our neighbor (Matthew 22:39), and even our enemies (Luke 6:27). In a very real sense, Jesus taught and embodied the message of love.

So, what did Jesus mean when he said that to follow him you must hate your family? R. C. Sproul says, “We must remember however that Jesus was an oriental teacher, and used figures of speech in order to communicate emphasis. On more than one occasion, he made use of hyperbole, that literary form that we identify as an intentional exaggeration in order to communicate a crucial point.” Jesus was talking about a comparative degree of affection.

A notable example of this comes from the book of Genesis, where Jacob is said to have “loved Rachel more than Leah” (Genesis 29:30). Yet, in the very next verse the Scripture says that “Leah was hated” (Genesis 29:31). It was not that Jacob loved Rachel and hated Leah, but rather that his love for Rachel was so great that his love for Leah seemed like hatred in comparison.

So, Jesus was teaching that your love for your family must pale in comparison to your love for him. Love for Jesus must be your supreme and ultimate loyalty.