Being an Authentic Follower of Jesus:
Two Acceptable Temptations Jesus Rejects
Luke 14:25-35
In this passage Jesus warns us about two temptations that are often accepted and endorsed by the church today. They are valuing the family more than God and valuing happiness more than God.
1. First Temptation: Our Tendency to Idolize Family (vs. 25-26a)
Jesus turns to the crowd and says, "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.” Jesus tells the crowd that that they must hate all these people – their parents, their spouse, their children, their brothers and sisters, and even hate themselves if they are to follow him. But all over the New Testament place we are commanded to love others - Jesus commands us to love our neighbors and love our enemies. Paul tells us to love one another and husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. How is that possible? He is warning us about a temptation we all face, not temptation as we normally think about it– lust, greed, anger or other negative sins but more a positive temptation. The temptation to take the good and beautiful gifts of God and make them ultimate. That is a more deceptive and deadly concern for us as Christ followers in America. He is telling us not to take the blessings of God, like family, and make them ultimate and therefore destroy them. So I want to look at the way God designed the family in the purposes of God so we can see what is going on here. If we understand and live Gods design for the family there will be great fruit in our families but if we do not understand nor live by Gods design, we destroy the family and will experience the pain and disappointment left in the wake of our decisions. Look at Ephesians 5:22-25:
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
If we go back to Genesis we see that God created man and then created the woman afterwards because man was inadequate by himself. So God takes a rib from Adam and creates this thing of beauty to come alongside Adam as his helpmate and together they are to cultivate creation. As the wife comes alongside the man as his helpmate, God is glorified. That is your goal in life, to live according to Gods design in such a way to glory God. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church and died for her. A husband’s goal is not to get all he can out of his wife but just the opposite, he is to cultivate his wife – patiently, tenderly, and spiritually serve and nurture her. That is the way God is glorified in marriage. But if she exists to make you happy or he exists to make you happy then your spouse has just moved from being your mate to being your god and you destroy the purpose and beauty of marriage and that will lead to pain and disappointment because there will be conflict, frustration, anger, etc. Now lets see how children fit in here. Look at Ephesians 6:1-3:
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother" (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land."
God created man and woman to work together cultivating and repairing a broken and fallen world by the Holy Sprit flowing though us. We create children and our primary responsibility with them is to teach them Gods purposes and Gods ways as the priority in their lives. To love Jesus with everything they got and to push back the darkness, the brokenness, the evil in the world as God reconciles all things to himself. That is the purpose of family and parenting. That is your primary task, not the churches. We are here to assist you, not take your place. If you are not doing it then pain and disappointment awaits you. If the husband is not finding his fulfillment, joy, and worship in God, if he is not pursuing that as a his first priority, his first love but expects his wife to be that for him there is guaranteed to be pain and conflict because she cannot possibly be that for him. If she is your god because you expect her to meet your need for fulfillment, joy, and worship you will end up miserable and she will end up miserable because she was not designed to be that for you. Take it a step further, if you are miserable in your marriage and you look to your kids for fulfillment, joy, and worship then you make them god, elevating them to a place they do not belong, you will cause pain and problems in your life and theirs. You will have forsaken the command of God to bring them up in the discipline of the Lord. If your life is prioritized around your kids and their lives and their happiness, you idolize them and you are looking for them to meet a need only God can fulfill. I am not saying kids are not important but when you spend your best resources on their education, their sports, and their fun but give very little time and attention to prioritizing God in your life or theirs then they will get the message loud and clear –you are religious but God is not important to you and he will not be important to them. They may grow up being religious but not a Christ follower.
2. Our Second Temptation: Our Tendency to Idolize Happiness (vs. 27-33)
The second temptation is worse, “hate even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” If you want to follow Jesus, you must die to yourself daily. Is this a duty or a delight? Let’s look at Hebrews 12:1-3 to give some understanding of what it means to die to self.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”
The cross was not pleasant, it took him 12 to 18 hours to die; it was a slow, painful, and agonizing death. Where is the joy in that? Scripture makes it clear that he is not excited about going to the cross. When he is in the garden, he is sick as he thinks of it, he is on the ground, he is in anguish and pleads, ‘take this cup from me, if there is some other way. So let’s put the garden and Hebrews 12 together. He is not happy but he has joy. The two are not even in the same galaxy. Happiness is a good thing but it is not ultimate. Happiness is when the sun and the moon and the stars align up - the weather is good, you are in the yard or the garden. Your wife is doing the Ephesians five thing and husband is doing the Ephesians five thing and the kids are doing the Ephesians six thing and you are in the zone, happy as clam at high tide. Then it happens – your wife says the wrong thing, the kids break something, or whatever and you are no longer happy. Happiness is a good thing but it is fleeting, anything can destroy that emotion. It will not sustain you in difficulties or suffering or even dying to yourself daily but joy can and will. Joy gives you the power to overcome sin and difficulties and suffering. So the second temptation to avoid is making the pursuit of happiness a priority over the pursuit of joy. God has not come to make you happy contrary to what some bible teachers say. God has come to give you ever increasing and ever lasting joy. Life sustaining, worship producing, selfless acts of love empowering, dark and suffering sustaining joy. People say I will do this because it will make me happy and God wants me to be happy. God would not want me to be miserable.
Let’s finish with the salt illustration. What does salt have to do with following Jesus? He has said, I made you for my glory, my pleasure and to enjoy me above all and if you love your family, prioritize your family more or you pursue your own happiness more than joy in me then you are useless and cannot be my disciple. Your heart will not be transformed, your faith will be stunted or stale, and you will not have a heart that loves to worship. You may be religious, read you bible, attend church, even sit up front and never fully give him your heart and your faith is empty and you will have very little interest in spiritual things. You will lose sight of grace and live by works.
Let’s close by doing a little inventory – is Jesus your first love, priority? Do your kids and friends know by your life and actions that he is more important than them, work, TV, sports, fishing, etc. Is your spouse an idol in your life? Is he or she the one who makes you fulfilled or happy? Do you look to your children for fulfillment? Is your happiness dependent upon their obedience, their grades, their happiness, and their accomplishments? Do you live and make decisions to increase your own happiness or your joy in God?
