What Commitment to Christ Really Means
Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)
Brad Bailey - October 27, 2019
Series #44 / Luke 14:25-35
Intro
It goes without saying…that we all have very different personalities…or dispositions. And one of those is related to the way we make decisions.
Some of us may be the “high process” types… before we buy something…we like to gather a lot of information… compare every option… and we fear regret.
Others have a freer spirit…they are more “grab and go.”
This kind of difference often becomes clear between partners in marriage.
I tend to assess something for a while…my wife would walk by and say “I like that one”… and away she goes. And I’m like…”You can’t just decide without researching and considering…and comparing.” And she reminds me… we’re just buying paper towels.
And of course I am reminded that it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. Apparently, it’s a fact of nature. Some believe it’s in the Bible.
But when it comes to the big choices in life… we can all struggle.
Where we should live… what career we should invest in…who we should marry.
Some may try to be quick… go with their gut…but impulsiveness can leave us with decisions that are shallow… that have no roots…and no real staying power.
And those who brood over making the right decisions… may also feel unsettled within… unsettled in their process.
We can all find that the really big decisions are hard to settle.
Those who study the nature of decision making… identify that one of the things that blocks real decisions…is a lack of priorities.
The leader of a company cannot guide it’s choices without knowing what matters most… without a grasp of priority. As one author notes…“A company with too many priorities has no priorities.” And neither can we navigate life without a grasp of priority. [1] We want a lot of things …many of which we must decide between… …. and the only thing that guides us is a clear sense of priority. We need a sense of order in terms of what matters most.
Without a guiding priority… we can become lost in sea of indecisiveness.
…unable to move forward and finish
Today, as we continue in our weekly focus on Encountering Jesus through the Gospel of Luke… Jesus calls us out.
Luke 14:25-35?Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 "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. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 "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? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 "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 twenty thousand? 32 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. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. 34 "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Would you join me and take a moment to pray…and simply open our hearts to hear this call? {PRAY}
[Return to just Luke 14:25-27 (NIV) on screen]
Luke 14:25-27 (NIV) ?25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 "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. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
What we find here is the moment that Jesus calls us out.
It’s helpful to recognize who Jesus is speaking to.
Luke notes specifically that "large crowds" were following Jesus and that Jesus specifically "turned to them" and elaborated on being a disciple.
Jesus was not talking to those who were antagonistic towards him or to those who were uninterested in his life and message. No, these were people who were "traveling with Jesus."
Jesus knew that so many in this crowd … like many people today… were following Jesus because they were inspired… but not invested… they were seeking some help… but their commitment went no deeper.
Essentially they were consumers of what he had to offer. [2]
Jesus understands that we all begin in the crowd… but we can’t confuse the crowd with commitment.
So he speaks into that place in all of us… to help us define whether we are a part of the crowd… or the committed… a fan or a follower.
One of the marks of a fan…is that they think they are a follower.
The fan will cheer… sing praises… get the T-short… until it’s not popular… not easy. (Could develop reality via sports in LA recently…that I am more of a fan of the Dodgers… now out of playoffs… of the Rams… now at 3-3… of the Lakers…who lost their first game this week to the Clippers.)
Jesus addresses this mistaken understanding of discipleship in verses 26 and 27. He explains in vivid and clear terms what it means to be a disciple of his.
The demands are stated in the phrase that reoccurs three times (v. 26, 27, 33) in this text, “… he cannot be my disciple… he cannot be my disciple… [he] cannot be my disciple.”
It’s helpful to understand that Jesus uses the term “disciples”…. which is not a word used a commonly today.
To be a disciple was far more than what we consider a student today.
One didn’t just learn information from the master…they wanted the life of the master… and submitted themselves to follow their whole way of life.
A disciple doesn’t learn this way of life by merely learning some propositions … but in actual participation and practice.
It is this nature of being “disciples” that Jesus calls us to. It’s not the highest terms of commitment. It’s the only terms of commitment.
… and there is no other terms of commitment. This is the was the only meaning of commitment. [3]
Today we tend to express commitment to Christ using the term “Christian”… and we tend to think in terms of many levels or types of being a “Christian.” We speak of cultural Christians… nominal Christians…and committed Christians. We might even speak of some as “serious Christians.”
It’s so important to hear what Jesus says…he speaks only of being disciples. There is no other commitment.
Being a disciple is not some optional …secondary level of commitment.
Now he calls them out of the crowd and into commitment… verse 26
"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.
If that sounds shocking…strange… it should. Speaking of hating our family doesn’t reflect what we know of God. The Bible tells us that "God is Love." Jesus has told us in other places that we must love one another. In fact the Bible teaches that people will know that we are the children of God by the way we love each other. Yet, here we have Jesus telling us that we must hate in order to follow Him.
Jesus is intending to make a strong point… but he’s using a rather common form hyperbole because elsewhere of course Jesus commends us to honor our fathers and our mothers.
In Semitic usage, in the Bible, the word hate can mean to hate actively, but it also can mean to hate comparatively. He’s not using the word hate in terms of being actively hostile … he’s saying that we will not be able to follow without being prepared to make hard choices.
It’s not really about hate… it’s about priority.
He is speaking like the leader of the ultimate expedition… to rescue all creation from it’s eternal judgment…more akin to forging a way through a high and dangerous mountain pass to bring urgent medical aid to villagers cut off from the rest of the world. ‘If you want to come any further,’ the leader says, ‘you’ll have to leave your packs behind. From here on the path is too steep and narrow…to carry all that stuff. You probably won’t find it again. And you’d better send your last postcards home; this is a dangerous route and it’s very likely that several of us won’t make it back.’ We can understand that. We may not like the sound of it, but we can see why it would make sense.
Jesus is not denying the importance of close family, and the propriety of living in supportive harmony with them. But when there is an urgent task to be done, as there now is, then everything else, including one’s own life, must be put at risk for the sake of the kingdom. [4]
It’s not really about hate… it’s about priority.
We will find we are unable to truly follow Christ unless…
1. Christ becomes our defining priority …more important than anyone else.
Jesus is saying that you have to a defining priority… one relationship that you understand is worthy of your most ultimate allegiance.
We should love our family…and honor them…but under and within the ultimate honor of the King of all existence….the one who gave everything and is everything.
This isn’t about superiority…it’s about priority.
Such a boundary is not a matter of spiting anyone… in fact it is serving them.
When we discover the grace of God… that leads us in serving others… we should become MORE caring…more thoughtful… more helpful.
Jesus actually modeled this.
He loved his mother…but he had boundaries. AT certain points, he had to tell his parents… his mother… “I have to be about my Father’s business… speaking of the Father in heaven. She of all people should have understood…he had been conceived by God…and God revealed who he was. But still… she was a mother…a Jewish mother…and those boundaries no doubt hurt her pride.
> But they helped her to discover the larger life that God had. Her world became bigger than her motherhood.
The truth is that when we love Christ most… we will love others best.
He's saying, to put it positively, you must love Him more than anyone. Jesus must be more important to you than anyone.
He goes on to say in verse twenty-seven,
And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Some of us think of the cross as a shiny piece of jewelry to be worn to show our faith. The cross was the Roman means of execution of those deemed criminals.
It remains to this day… the most horrific combination of physical pain and public humiliation.
It was this very means by which Christ would bear the sins of the world.
He's not telling them that they have to take up His cross. Only He can do that. Only he could stand between the powers of this world and the separation and death…and that was what God came to offer…in Christ.
He is telling us that we must follow him in choosing the way of God over the ways of this world. We must join the will of God …and pay the price for defying the powers of this world.
We must put to death our self-proclaimed kingdoms… they don’t exist. Just as Jesus had led his life in submission to the only true source of life and all that is good….so we must follow.
Jesus says, “You can’t follow after me unless you give up being your own master…your own king…your own ruler. There is only one king… and one kingdom. You can enter it…but not if you still claim to be your own self-proclaimed king….like the ruler of this world.
We will find we are unable to truly follow Christ unless…
2. We accept the cost of our personal freedom.
When we consider both parts of this calling… we can realize that… Jesus is defying both traditional cultural claims and modern individualistic cultural claims.
Traditional culture is rooted in the claims and attachments to marriage and family and children…and here Jesus says our love for him must transcend the roles of family.
To those who know the claim of traditional life… it’s rooted in family. Life revolves around your own family and your extended family. Your life is to serve the honor of the family. Those of you who are from more traditional cultures or whose parents are from more traditional cultures know that in such cultures…you never disgraced your family. You never moved away from your family. You never married somebody your family didn’t want.
He declares that as right as the love of family may be…and the honor of family may be… they are not your greatest allegiance… or affection.
But then he is equally subversive of our Western individualistic, secular society because he says we must submit our own lives. In Western individualistic society we say, “Nobody has the right to tell me what to do with my own life.”
To carry one’s cross reflects the image of a convicted criminal stumbling to their deaths carrying the very instrument of that death, a cross. The cross was not an implement of irritation or inconvenience it was an implement of death. Everyone knew that this person was saying “goodbye” to everything. There would be no turning or coming back. This image undoubtedly sent a shudder of fear through his listeners.
It means I no longer claim a right to some self-ruled life.
It doesn’t mean that I don’t exercise my human nature of having a will or desires or ambitions or plans…it means that I do so in relationship to Him….in submission to him.
They are saying “I am no longer centered in myself…because I am no longer the center of life.”
I don’t write the script of my own life.
He says, “You have your life outlined ahead of you. Don’t fit me into your life. Don’t make me the means and your life the end. Your life is the means, and I am the end.
We see this is the life of those first disciples.
Let’s not miss the fact that it took some clarifying. They said yes… to his call…and still went through confusion… had some vain expectations… disappointment in themselves.
> But they came to that point in which they gave up everything …because it was worth giving their whole life to.
And something happens…
Life become harder and easier.
Outwardly… one accepts hardship. Inwardly… one now has that defining priority.
So Jesus speaks to that process…the need to grasp priority.
[Return to just Luke 14:28-32 (NIV) on screen]
Luke 14:28-32 (NIV) ? 28 "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? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 "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 twenty thousand? 32 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.
Jesus knows that we tend not to form priorities until we are faced with a choice. If we’re not ready for that, we are like the tower-builder or warmonger who haven’t thought through what they are really about.
We will find we are unable to truly follow Christ unless…
3. We count the cost… so that we are prepared to finish.
We may be like the bargain hunter… never ready to pay full price.
Getting a good deal is great in material matters….but not in more ultimate choices.
There are some things that bear a defined price.
We may see that Jesus … having died and risen…offer life on the other side of this life… and want to follow him…but we really don’t want to give up our own self rule… we don’t want to pay the price of defying what this world rewards.
So we have an end in mind…but we really haven’t prepared to pay the whole price required to finish.
We will face being like someone who claimed to be doing one thing…but having never actually prepared themselves to do it. [6]
Like a tower builder….who couldn’t finish because he had never counted the cost.
Like a king declaring they were ready for battle … who couldn’t win… because he never counted what would be needed. [5]
The problem is captured in those words… “was not able to finish.”
Jesus describes how regretful it is when someone has not been able to finish what they claimed to be doing… because they hadn’t ever prepared well.
I suppose we could imagine how one may feel if they lose their home to a loan they could afford. Or the new car they bought is repossessed because they could afford the payments. And one morning it’s being taken by tow truck out of their neighborhood.
During the end of my high school years I began working with a crew of lives that had previously known me as a bit of a rebel…. And they were probably a bit surprised by the change my commitment to Jesus had made. Well…at one point…I just gave myself back to my more rebellious ways… and what was interesting…was that a few years later…as young adults… I discovered that when I compromised my commitment… those who I assumed were glad that I had… actually had more respect when I didn’t join in all that they did.
Our distinctiveness…is that which offers life in this world. If we lose that distinctiveness… we have nothing to offer.
And this is what he brings home in his final words.
Luke 14:33-35 (NIV) ? 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. 34 "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
He says if we join him in defying the powers of this world…and living in relationship to the powers that truly reign… we are like salt.
In that culture, salt was the great means of bring forth life…. it was used as a preservative, as flavoring to bring out the potential flavor, and as a fertilizer.
But if it lost its saltiness, it only had the appearance of salt with none of the benefits. As Jesus says, "It is fit neither for the soil or the manure pile." In other words it was useless in every respect.
SO many of us want to join this great purpose…but may try to live in two worlds.
I have found that when I tried to get the best of both worlds…I got neither.
As CS Lewis noted…“Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things.” – C.S. Lewis [7]
Jesus is speaking to us… as a crowd…about what it means to be committed.
He is calling us out.
Some of you identify with being in the crowd… interested…traveling with Jesus…but not yet committed. Jesus understands that. Today he wants you to hear the call… and to hear it more clearly.
It is not a call to make him a part of your life…as if he can serve as an optional “add on”… and fit well in a compartment in your life.
He doesn’t become a part of our lives… he becomes the purpose of our lives.
He doesn’t take a place at the edge of our lives…but at the center of our lives. [8]
Some of us may realize that we are living with divided hearts.
We are trying to have the best of two loves. Our commitment is in conflict.
Today… we sense the need to embrace our distinction again.
Maybe we realize that there are competing claims on our lives.
• Your popularity has had a claim on your life.
• Your possessions… have had a claim on your life.
• Your plans… have had a claim on your life.
I want us to give us an opportunity embrace the commitment to Christ… reembrace his claim… and our distinction.
Closing Prayer
Closing Song: You Can Have It All
Resources: Wright, T. (2004). Luke for Everyone (pp. 179–182). ;John Hamby (The Demands of Discipleship); Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III (“What Will Jesus Cost You?”)
Notes:
1. American Psychologist Theodore Isaac Rubin wrote the book “Overcoming Indecisiveness Problem” … covers different types of “pseudodecisions,” such as procrastination, impulse moves, and rebellion-type choices. He explains that one of the things that blocks real decisions…is a lack of priorities. As another article described about the problem of indecisive leaders in business: “He needs to take ownership of whatever his priority should be. He’s indecisive because he feels they are all priorities. As Verne Harnish notes in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, “A company with too many priorities has no priorities.” - Business & Leadership Failure: Indecisiveness (#2-29-13) Newsletter #138- Posted by Douglas A Wick on Sat, May 4, 2013
2. Earlier in Luke, Jesus spoke of how the seeds of the kingdom invitation landed on different type of soil… which reflected different dispositions of the human heart. He spoke of “The Shallow Superficial Heart”… in Luke 8:6… he says, “Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture.” In His explanation in verse thirteen Jesus tells the disciples,
“Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.”
The stony ground is not just ground with rocks in it, but rather it describes ground that is only a few inches thick with bedrock underneath. So when the seed is sown it quickly germinates but is unable to put down any real roots. When the sun comes out it rapidly scorches the plant which came up quickly, but because it is without roots it cannot get the water it needs to survive. The shallow superficial heart will be initially receptive to the good news which God speaks… in fact…the with real notable joy…but it is only being engaged on a shallow level.
Such a condition of the heart is vulnerable to having emotions stirred more than a real commitment.
Such a condition of the heart is vulnerable to following Jesus only so far as it makes things easier for them, make things happier and more prosperous. Most people don’t want to be thought of as shallow… or superficial. But in truth we have created a culture that trains us to live as merely impulsive creatures… to merely seek what satisfies the immediate.
And then Jesus speaks of “The Entangled Heart.” In Luke 8:7, Jesus says “Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants.” Then Jesus explained in verse fourteen, “The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.” This type of ground has a more hidden challenge. The seeds can land…and may even form root that allow it to initially grow.
But something else is there. There are weeds within the soil …and they are freely growing alongside…and in time…will choke out the plant. This is the divided heart… it is bound by other attachments. The thorns, Jesus explained represented “life’s worries, riches and pleasures.” These three things that destroy what God is planting in our lives.
3. The term "disciples" occurs 269 times in the New Testament, while the term "Christian" only occurs three times. In the Book of Acts we’re told that "The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch (Acts 11:26)" …and that was by outsiders.
4. As Ronnie Knight" notes, (Jesus Wants Followers Not Fans"),
We know from the Old Testament that God is a jealous God. The Ten Commandments begin with the concept that we should not place any being or any thing before our relationship with God. Israel stayed in trouble because they constantly broke that commandment. Here how God addressed this issue with the Children of Israel:
"If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or our friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, ’Let us go and serve other gods’, which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him; but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away form the Lord your God (Deuteronomy 13.6-10 NKJV)."
God is serious about our commitment to Him. So much so that He commanded the children of Israel to "kill" any one who even tried to entice them away even if that someone was a family member or a close friend. Do not misunderstand. I am not suggesting that you should go around killing people. I am merely suggesting to you that God intends for our relationship with Him to be sacred and first in our lives. I want you to understand that you and I must be willing to forsake all and follow Him. I we want to be followers rather than fans we must make the supreme commitment to put Him first place in our live.
5. N.T. Wright believes that: “These two pictures, the tower and the battle, themselves carried a cryptic warning in Jesus’ day. The most important building project of his time was of course the Temple in Jerusalem: Herod the Great had begun a massive programme of rebuilding and beautifying it, and his sons and heirs were carrying on the work. But what was it all for? Would it ever be completed? Jesus has already warned that God had abandoned his house (13:35); Herod’s Temple would shortly be left a smouldering ruin, its folly plain for all to see.
This is not unconnected to the second warning. If Jesus’ contemporaries had fighting in mind, the chief enemy against whom they were longing to go to war was Rome. They probably only had a vague idea of who exactly the Romans were and what sort of forces they had at their command; otherwise, long before they came to blows, they would have taken the wise course and found a way to peace. But Jesus’ warnings, and his urgings towards peace, were falling on deaf ears. His listeners, too concerned to hang on to their ancestral possessions, were eager for a war that would set them and their land free at last. Jesus was confronting them with a true emergency, and they were unable to see it and respond appropriately.”
6. “It is foolish and rash to make a promise to the Lord before counting the cost.” - Proverbs 20:25 (TLB)
7. From: The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. III, Narnia, Cambridge and Joy, 1950-1963, edited by Walter Hooper, HarperSanFrancisco, 2007, p. 111]
8. In Galatians 2:20-21 the Apostle Paul said
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
