Discipleship – The Sacrifice of Self
Luke 14:25 – 35
Out west, there is a park called the Bridger Wilderness Area. This is a place that lives true to its name. The only shelters you will find are the tents that people bring in with them. The only restrooms you will find resemble bushes and shrubs. This wooded and mountainous terrain is truly one of the few wilderness areas left in the United States.
Now, you would expect from the name that you probably would not have many amenities there. After all, it is a wilderness area, so you probably would not want to go there if you could not hack the outdoors. Yet, every year, the staff at Bridger receives comment cards complaining of the poor conditions of the area. Here are a few samples.
• Please reconstruct the trails and avoid building trails that go uphill.
• There are too many bugs, leeches, spiders, and spider webs. Please spray the area more thoroughly to rid the area of these pests.
• Please pave the trails. Also, chair lifts need to be installed in some places so that we can get those wonderful views without having to hike them.
• The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals.
• A small deer came into camp and stole my jar of pickles. Is there a way I can get reimbursed? Please call.
• Escalators would help on steep uphill sections.
• Putting a restaurant such as McDonald’s on the trailhead would be nice.
• There are way too many rocks on the mountain. Please remove them.
I think it is safe to say that these people did not know what they were getting into when they signed up to go to a wilderness area. They were looking for something convenient and comfortable without much work, so it is understandable that they were upset when the hardships showed up. Even though they knew they were going into a rough area, they were not prepared for what laid ahead of them because they did not truly know what a wilderness area was like.
In the same way, people have a misunderstanding of what it means to be a Christian. After all, all you need to do is come to church, read the Bible every once in awhile, and say a few prayers and then everything will be rosy all of the time. We think that after we are saved, God should take away all the pain and hardships. After all, we have done what is required of us. Then, as we start on the road to maturity, something happens that is contrary to this plan, and we begin to complain. “God, this isn’t what I signed up for. Shouldn’t things be easy now?”
Well, just like these people were mistaken about what a real wilderness area was all about, I believe that many of us did not know what we were signing up for when we accepted Christ as Savior. When we became a Christians, we were telling God that we would train to be one of His disciples. We were telling God that we would follow his leading through his teaching and put it into practice no matter what the cost. In our passage this morning, the Bible says that there is great cost in becoming a disciple. Let’s look into His word in Luke 14:25-35.
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying ‘this fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you that does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears let him hear.”
This morning, I want to break apart this tough scripture to see if we can get a better picture of how we can become a disciple of Christ. I know that this does not seem like the typical teaching of Jesus, but he wants us all to hear it. After all, he was speaking to a large crowd, and he tells us that if we have ears, we are to hear what he is saying here. This teaching is not just for a select few – it is for everyone. It will not be easy to follow this teaching, but God never promised us a rose garden here on earth. That is for the next life. Let’s ask the Lord to bless our time as we delve into His Word.
A Disciple Will Love God Above All Others
This passage starts off with quite a harsh statement. Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.” When we take a look at this statement, it seems to be a contradiction to other teachings in the Bible. We are told in the Ten Commandments to honor our mother and father, yet Jesus tells them here to hate them. We are told in Ephesians 5 that wives should submit to their husbands and husbands are to love and honor their wives as Jesus loved the church. Later in chapter 6, parents are told not to exasperate their children, yet Jesus is seemingly telling us to hate them here. Finally, we are told all through the Bible to love our brothers and sisters. With all of this evidence to love those close to us, how can Jesus now be telling us to hate them all?
Let me start by pointing out to the way Jesus teaches. He often uses different tools of grammar to get across points. If you study his teachings, you will see Him use things such as metaphors, similes, and parables to get across his points. Here, Jesus has employed the hyperbole. Let’s all think back to English class for a moment and try to remember what is meant by hyperbole. Hyperbole is an intentional exaggeration to emphasize a point. For example, when you wives ask your husbands to do something and they don’t, you next phrase to them may employ hyperbole. You will say something like, “Honey, I’ve told you to take out that trash a million times and you haven’t yet.” You haven’t really told them that a million times, but you intentionally exaggerate the point in order to prove to them that you have told them numerous times.
So, Jesus is using hyperbole here, but you may still be uncomfortable with the use of the word hate here. When you look back to the original Greek, Jesus uses a word here that is translated hate in the English, but it is not necessarily the same word the Greeks would use to mean an intense dislike. The word used here is sane, and it simply means to prefer less. So, Jesus, though he uses a harsh word to get our attention, is not telling us to go on the warpath with our families and intensely dislike them for his sake. He is telling us that we should simply desire and love God above all others. Normally, this is not a problem, especially in our country, because our families are mostly supportive of what we do as Christians. However, whenever a conflict arises between one’s family and the demands of the Kingdom, the Kingdom must always come first.
In the book Jesus Freaks by DC Talk and the Voice of the Martyrs, there are many stories of true disciples who have had to go through this very thing. A man named Masih tells of what he went through after accepting Jesus as his Savior. “My family kicked me out. My brother returned from Germany and threatened to kill me; but if God is for me who can be against me? My brother from Jordan did not threaten me, but invited me to visit and told me: ‘Don’t tell anyone you are a Christian’. When he heard I had become a pastor, he and his family didn’t want to see me.”
This is the exact situation that Jesus was talking about. We can’t allow our love of our family and friends to get in the way of our love of God. Masih reported later in this way. “I am now an ordained pastor and was married two months ago. I am happy in Jesus. Although I lost my physical family, I have my spiritual family.” God came through for him when Masih chose God over his loved ones, and he will do the same for you. However, take this as a lesson. If you don’t want to have to choose between God and family, make every effort to get your family on board with what God wants to do through you. Share with you spouse. Train your children in the way they should go. Share devotions and testimonies with those you love. Make every effort to love your family into the Kingdom of God, but
make sure you never put your love of them in front of your love for God.
A Disciple Will Give Up His/Her Life
In the same book, there are dozens of other stories of those who have given up their lives for their faith. Some of the stories are about those in the Bible that were killed for their beliefs. Others are more contemporary stories of those who have died. A pastor in Nigeria is told about who was beaten and tortured and forced to watch as many in his church were executed. When he was asked to renounce his faith, he raised his right hand to God and began to sing to God. A guard quickly reached for his sword and with one swipe cut off the right hand that was raised. Instantly, the pastor dropped his bloody arm and raised up the left singing, “He is Lord, He is Lord. He has risen from the dead and He is Lord.” This pastor was willing to give up everything for God.
Many other stories are told of those being injured and even being killed. Some deaths led to more faith in others, and some led to converts to Christ among the executioners, but all of them were willing to give up their life for Jesus Christ. Now, you may be thinking that this is a thing of the past, but I want to bring something to your attention. More people were killed and tortured last year around the world for being Christians than any other year in recorded history. Every year it seems to increase, but yet we hear nothing about it on the news, and it may not be far off in our own country. Think about it this way. That little girl in Colorado had no idea that she would have to die for her faith when the shooting at Columbine high school took place. But, when she was asked if she believed in God, she said yes and took death instead of denying her Christ. It is more likely than not that we will never have to give our lives for our faith, but are you ready to do it if you had too? If someone asked you to pick Christ or pick life, what would you do?
Jesus tells the followers that they needed to take up their cross and follow Him. You see, in their culture, the cross was not just a piece of jewelry they wore around their neck. It was not just a decoration in the church. The cross was a symbol of death and suffering. It was the cruelest form of death in the day, and everyone cringed when they thought of the terror of the cross because it stood for a cruel and certain death. So, when Jesus told them to take up their cross, he was telling them to get ready to give up their life because it may be taken from them for His Name. We are to be ready today to give up our lives if we are called to as well.
A Disciple Will Finish Strong
Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of his day, once proclaimed, “Stopping at third base adds no more to the score than striking out. It doesn’t matter how well you start if you fail to finish.” Sometimes in our Christian lives, we are guilty of this. We start off as balls of fire ready to do whatever God tells us to do. We serve here and proclaim the gospel there, and we do all we are supposed to do for the Kingdom. Then, as the years go by, we become a little lax in our duties. We are still active in the church, but we begin to become so comfortable with the Christian routine that we begin to forsake the realities of walking with Christ. Before long, we begin to coast in our Christian lives and make no more strides to grow. This leads to a life that does not finish strong.
Jesus tells of a person who sets out to build a tower. This person makes great plans in every area except one. He does not count all of the costs, and thereby, he comes up short in the end and does not finish strong. As we work in the Kingdom of God, we must make sure we count the cost. God wants us to serve Him until the day we die. That is one of the costs of being a disciple. We don’t get breaks, and we don’t get to coast. We must seek to give our best every day of our lives and seek to finish even stronger than we started. You see when we start to coast and do not finish, the same thing will happen to us as happened to the tower builder. He was ridiculed because he was unable to finish, and many Christians are ridiculed because they do not finish strong. They are only a partial version of Christ-likeness, and the world will point out the fact that they have not made it to the end. This cannot be. We must seek to finish strong because there is no such thing as spiritual retirement.
A Disciple Will Surrender Everything
In our passage, Jesus tells of two kings. One has a force that is twice the size of the other. So, the one who is out numbered, wisely goes to the other king and makes peace before the battle even begins. Think about it this way. You and I are one of the kings and Jesus Christ is the other. Guess which one has more men? Because we can never win against God with our puny numbers of troops, we must decide to make peace with him. How do we do that? We need to surrender. Now, in Jesus’ day, it was the custom of the king who surrenders to become the servant of the other. In humility for being allowed to live, the surrendering king would bow down and worship the other king and would do all he was told to do. We must do the same to Jesus as his disciples. We must give up control of our lives and allow Him to lead.
I was a lifeguard for many years in high school and college. In one of our training courses, we were given the following scenario to solve based on an actual event at a beach in California. You are on the beach and you spot a man who is drowning. This man is visibly much larger than you are, and he is in a great panic. The crowd on the beach is yelling at you as the lifeguard to go out and rescue the man before he dies. How do you go about the rescue? Most people answered that they would immediately swim out to the man and try to calm him down by talking to him. Some even offered to go out and try to throw their lifeguard tube to him and let him grab it and float until he was calmed down. However, this is not how the lifeguard handled the situation. Here is what he did. The lifeguard waited on the beach for several minutes. With each second, the crowd began to get more and more boisterous trying to convince the guard to go and do his job. Finally, the man became weak and stopped thrashing. He started to go down for what seemed like the final time. Then, the lifeguard swam out to him and rescued him.
Now, instead of receiving a hero’s welcome, most of the onlookers were furious with the guard. Why didn’t he go out sooner to get the man? The guard patiently addressed the crowd with these words. “You see, this man is much bigger and stronger than I am. If I had gone out sooner, he was thrashing and kicking so violently that we both would have drowned. As long as he was trying to save himself, I couldn’t save him. But, when he got tired and gave up, then I knew I could save us.” Isn’t this a great picture of what we need to do as disciples? We need to give up everything inside us and stop trying to save ourselves. We must surrender and allow God to take over.
A Disciple Will Remain Pure and Useful
Jesus ends this teaching with a little excerpt on salt. Salt was very valuable in this time. It was used to pay Roman soldiers. It was used as a preservative. It was also a form of fertilizer, and it could be used to help heal a wound. It had extreme value in this society because it was so useful.
The problem with salt in this day was that you couldn’t just go to the store and buy a pure bag of it. The salt they got came from the Dead Sea. When the water evaporated, it left salt, but sometimes the salt would mix with other minerals. It still looked like salt, tasted like salt, and poured like salt, but it wasn’t salty. Since it had lost its saltiness, it was no longer useful in any of the capacities named above. If they happened to get salt like this, the only thing they could do was throw it out.
Jesus tells us as disciples to make sure we don’t lose our saltiness. In saying this, he is saying that we need to remain useful. We must live a life in which we serve. We must live a life in which we show the fruit of the Spirit. In order to do this, we must remain pure. You see, pure salt will never lose its saltiness. This only happens when it is mixed with other materials which makes it impure. As Christians, we must make sure that we remain pure and not allow the things of the world to take away our usefulness. No one wants polluted salt that is of no use, and no one wants impure Christians that are of no use. Be sure to remain pure.
As I close, I just want to share a story with you. Yakov Smirnoff, a Russian comedian, once shared about what he saw when he first came to America. He was amazed at the variety of instant products he could buy at the store. There was powdered milk – all you needed to do was add water and then you would have milk. There was powdered orange drink. All you had to do was add water and you would have orange drink. Then he came to the baby powder and thought, “Wow, what a great country. All I have to do is add water and then I will get a baby.” Obviously, this is not true, and it is the same when it comes to becoming a disciple. You cannot just add water to a believer and expect a disciple to come out. You must sacrifice everything. You must love God above everything else. You must be willing to give up your life for your faith. You must be willing to keep going to finish strong. You must be willing to surrender, and you must stay pure so you can be useful. These are not easy things, but you must decide what you want. Do you want to be a disciple in which you know the Father intimately, or are you content with coasting through your faith. The choice is yours. Let’s pray.
