Luke 14:25-35

The book of Luke, as we continue our study through this gospel, chapter 14, beginning with verse 25, I’ll be reading through verse 35. Luke 14, beginning with verse 25. Great multitudes with him, and he turned and said unto them, if any come to me, hate not his father, mother, and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you intending to build a tower, siteth not down first, and count the cost whether he had sufficient to finish it. Less happily, after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that behold it began to mock him, saying the man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going to make war against another king, Siteth not down first and consulteth whether he be able with 10,000 to meet him that cometh against him with 20,000. Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassador and desirth conditions of peace. Though likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsilleth, forsaketh not all that he hath. He cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted or seasoned. It is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dunghill, that men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let in hear. The scripture reads this morning, in Pilgrim’s Progress, when Mr. Christian flees the city of destruction heading for the celestial city and the narrow gate that leads him to it, a man named ignorance desired to join him on this journey. Now, ignorance had heard all the glorious things about the celestial city that he wanted to take part in that. However, at the first sign of trouble, when they fell into the slough of the spawn, or slav disbun, we find that he loses interest and ignorance returns back to the city of destruction. And I think this was an interesting understanding. It is Christian soldier. alone that endure many hardships and reach eventually the celestial city. So Mr. Christian, that was the first main problem he had, but that wasn’t the only, but he keeps soldiering on and he goes through all this. Bunyan, I think, was demonstrating the problem of apostasy. Those who have an interest in the things of God and salvation and for a time they will follow the things of God and then all of a sudden eventually they turn away and no longer show an interest in being Christ’s disciple. Now, Christian, the scripture set forth for us a lot of incentives about the glory of heaven. and how wonderful heaven is. And so you’re encouraged to pursue a discipleship with Jesus Christ. Solomon spoke with the path of godly wisdom in this manner. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all our paths are peace in Proverbs 317. Heaven is spoken of in such glorious terms that men seek it. But notice the strong desire of the Apostle Paul in the scripture to make the gospel agreeable to men. He said he became all things to all men that he might win some. Jesus Christ here was very careful to balance his message of salvation. While he might talk about the glories of being with the Lord, he all said, he also also gives out warnings about apostasy and about turning back, which is what our text really talks about. Many profess to be disciples of Christ who are not genuine disciples of Jesus Christ. So our topic this morning is being a true disciple. Let me begin by saying this. You must not be ignorant of what is required to be Christ. Christ disciple in verses 25 to 27. Notice this. Improper encouragements may lead you to be a nominal Christian. And there went great multitudes with him, and he turned and said under that. And then he gives out a warning. We can paint a rosy picture of being Christ’s disciple. There are many who are many who were. teach that if you become a Christian, everything is going to be just wonderful in your life. And everything’s going to go well. And so you’re persuaded to be a disciple. Having left the Pharisees home where he had been feasting, Jesus is followed by a great multitude of people. There are a lot of people who were interested in what Jesus Christ had to say and what he was doing. But he knew that notwithstanding the interest that was shown in him, that not everyone, in fact, most of them were ignorant of what it meant to be a real disciple. And so these people were quite unprepared to undergo the difficulties associated with discipleship. And knowing this, Jesus, here addresses them in a very searching manner. It’s interesting that Christ wisely adopted his message to those to whom he was speaking. When he spoke to the Pharisees who recall, he spoke of humility and charity. You don’t pick the best seats and so forth. You don’t have a high opinion of yourself and so forth. When he spoke to the unbelievers, he talked about the coming gospel feast, or coming to the gospel feast, I should say. And here he’s speaking to the multitudes that are mixed. There are probably some believers in there and some who are not. So he talks about true discipleship at this point. Sadly, men improperly encourage others to make disciples. Like health and wealth gospel is one way that we see very, very true. prevalent in our own day. Many never tell perspective disciples of the cost of following Christ. So while they may have made many disciples, the problem is these are usually nominal disciples and not true disciples. It was said of Philip of Macedon that he conquered less by the sword than by gold. He would go to his enemies and try to bribe them into surrendering to him and coming under his subjection. But no success can accompany the attempts of this kind in spiritual warfare. You must describe the difficulties in trials as well as the comforts and joys that are associated with following Christ. Otherwise, people for only a while, believe and then in a time of difficulty, they’re going to cast aside the faith. So improper encouragements may lead people to be nominal Christians. Well, we see here, following Jesus Christ, requires you to be willing to forsake all others. Verse 26. If any man come to me, hate on his father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters. Yea, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Now this sounds like a very difficult duty. The word hate here is not used in the same sense as being malicious toward someone or having some type of unjustifiable feelings toward others. Certainly the gospel requires us even to love our enemies. But hate is used in this sense, in that of forsaking, abandoning, or rejecting others. You are to hate your friends and family in comparison to Jesus Christ. as Jesus said, He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He that love a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10.37. We’re talking here about the preference of one thing over another. And he’s saying here that there are things that we have to disregard with the claims of others that we may follow Christ. No man can serve two masters. He’ll love the one and hate the other, Jesus said. So the claims of the parents relative to Christ, for example, would require you to forsake your parents in order to follow Christ. And I think he’s using the word hate in that sense. You cannot be Christ’s disciple and put the will of those who are even the dearest and closest to you before his will for the Christ will. So we must love Christ more than anyone else in this world. Even your wife and even your children. In other words, he takes priority. He is the one to whom our love belongs in its fullest capacity. You remember Abraham, when God came and told him, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy kindred father’s house unto a land that I will show it. Now think about that. I want you to leave your family. Follow my will, and I’m going to take you to a new land. That’s not an easy task. He has to forsake or hate his family in order to obey that command. Think about Abraham also when he was told to sacrifice his only son on my Mount Mariah. And here he is. Who does he love more? Does he love the Lord? So that he obey the Lord’s will? Or do he love his son more? And we see the duty he has to forsake the one and love the other. Look at the example of Moses. By faith, Moses, when he would have come to years refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. He forsook the royal family of Egypt in which he had grown up and all the privileges and all the wealth and all the benefits associated with it in order to throw himself in with the people of Christ. He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the riches. of Egypt. When your duty to your parents comes in competition with your clear duty to Christ, then you must reject your parents in favor of Christ. Hark and O daughter, and consider an incline thy ear, forget thine own people in thy father’s house. That’s in Psalm 45. Verse 10, where we have the king and his bride. The bride is told, cast aside your father’s house. You love me. Follow me. I’m your leader. I’m your king. So following Jesus Christ requires you to be willing to forsake all others. You are required to demonstrate self-denial. Look at verses 26 and 27 here. It talks about here hating your own life also in verse 26. And in verse 27, it says, and whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now, naturally, every man loves his wife. Remember what the Satan said. Satan said, this in the book of Job. Yea, all that a man have will he give for his life. That’s how precious it is to him, Job 2.4. But you cannot be Christ’s disciple if you do not love him more than you love your own life. Now, what does that mean? How does that play out? Well, you must be willing to suffer affliction and even death in order that you would not dishonor Christ. I read in the book of Revelation that the Bible says of the martyrs that they love not their lives under death. He that loveth his life shall lose it. He that hateth or forsakes his life in this world shall keep it under life eternal. John 12. 25. Remember how Paul said that he was ready not only to be bound for the gospel’s sake, but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 27 is almost identical with Luke 923, which we covered previously about taking up your cross. I’m not going to dwell in that on detail. I’m going to make my comments brief here. The cross of discipleship is here put for all the self-denial and suffering of the Christian life. It is not a light thing to follow Christ. There is a cross to bear, and sometimes that cross is heavy to carry. Jesus would have you realized the difficulty before you commit yourself to being his disciple. Can you bear the cross? It means bearing the ridicule and hatred of the world. It means having family and even relatives and friends turn their backs on you. And perhaps it means death. So you must not be ignorant of what is required here to be Christ’s disciple. People give improper encouragement. You end up with nominal Christians. But Jesus says following him requires you to be will. to forsake all others and to live a life of self-denial. Now, secondly, in my second major point is this. He gives us two parables for us to consider about being Christ’s disciple. In verses 28 to 32. And the first, here is the expense of building a tower. When you profess to be a follower of Christ, you’re like a man who undertakes a building project that he’s going to build a tower. Such a man must carefully calculate the expense of such a construction, less to get halfway through, and he can’t finish it. When I was growing up, there was a neighborhood home which the guy was renovating his porch and the front of his house. And he got a portion of it done and then for the next 15 years it was like part way done. That’s it. I don’t know if he ran out of money or you just didn’t have the time to do it or what, but it was like, why doesn’t he finish it? And this is what Jesus is saying here. You know, there was a point in which Pilate began to build an aqueduct and in connection with it, there was going to be a tower. And he got started on building this tower, but he couldn’t finish it. He failed to count the cost. It ended up being more expensive, I guess, than he had planned, and he ran out of resources. So the building project had to be abandoned, and there was a portion of a tower sitting there and it never got done. Now, if we transfer this to the spiritual room, a disciple of Christ must count the cost before he starts following Jesus Christ. You must consider the cost of mortifying your sins because that’s your duty. Of a life of self-denial and watchfulness. Of constant course of holy duties that you should perform. You know, worship and praise and certainly devotion and leading the family and so forth, your reputation in the world. You know, when you start following Christ, people will turn their backs on you. They don’t want to have anything to do with you. The loss of wealth and liberties can take place. In Scripture, we see those who have their land confiscated. We find that there were those who were mistreated regard to the their freedoms and liberties. And there’s lost all that is dear to you. Maybe your family. Maybe your mother and father, your wife, with children, and so forth. But nothing would be more shameful than to start out following Christ and then abandon it. The world will ridicule you and you will lose all your work and sacrifice, your loss will be of those things which you have already wrought, as 2nd John 8 talks about. All the work you put into it, all the effort, it’s all lost. All that you’ve done, all that you’ve suffered, was in vain. As Jesus once put it, you put your hand to the plow, and look back. Didn’t finish. So the expense of building a tower, And then he talks about the perils of going to war in verses 31 to 33. Now, when undertaking to be Christ’s disciple, you must have considered whether you have a stanema and fighting strength to win. As Solomon declared, every purpose is established by counsel and with good advice make wars. Think it over carefully before you get involved. A prudent king will not go to war without considering his likelihood of success. Can he, with 10,000 men, defeat someone who has 20,000 men? If your enemy has a two-to-one advantage over you, can you beat him? Are you going to have a defensive position that’s strong that would enable you to do that? You see, these are the kinds of things one must way. It would be better to negotiate terms of peace with the enemy than the foolishly get routed in a battle that you’re going to lose. Now, the Christian life here involves spiritual warfare against the superior enemy, the world, the flesh, and the devil. You have to consider if you can actually endure the hardships. hardships of such a war. Endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, Paul Fulton. It would be better to make the best terms you can with the world than to pretend to renounce it, then go back to it. For when tribulation and persecution arises because of the word, to return to the world in a state of defeat, would be shameful. So we have two parables here that give us the same kind of idea with regard to following Christ. And then thirdly, you’re warned against casting aside your discipleship in verses 34 and 35. Salt is good if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted or seasoned. It is neither fit for land nor yet for the dunghill. That men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear let him hear. Remember that Jesus said that his people, true Christians in the sermon of the mount, are the salt of the earth. They’re the salt of the earth. Salt is good, for it has a useful purpose. And so does the genuine Christian in the world. Salt preserves from decay. And so does the Christian who is mixed in with society. You remember this world is a putrifying and corrupt world. But Lot, while he was in Soham, God would not bring the judgment. And so they had to haul him out. The angels had to haul him out. before they judged Sodom. Salt makes things taste better. So does the Christian, by his doctrine and behavior, an example, make things better in this world. But Christian warns here, or Christ warns here, against apostas. Apostis. Salt can lose its saver. It says here. In other words, the false professor becomes carnal and worldly and wholly degenerate, he’s no longer acting as some type of salt for this world. He no longer is different from the world around him. Apostates cannot be recovered. Where will it be seasoned? Can it act like salt again if it’s lost its saver? Can you restore it? The answer to that is no. You can’t restore it. As Hebrew 6 indicates to us, we cannot renew again to repentance. Apostates are useless. It is neither fit for the land or yet for the dunghill. Some salts in limited amounts are good for the soil, and they make the land more productive like manure. Some salt, mixed with dung, helps it to be more useful as a fertilizer. However, having lost its savior, it’s not even good for these limited uses that we might have for it. Apostates, once graceless professors, because they never had grace. Have no use. They’re hurtful to the church. And they don’t have a testimony before the world. Even if he speaks of the things of God, he cannot really provide edification because he only knows the letter of the law. You know, Solomon talks about a proverb in the mouth of a fool. And that’s the way God’s word is, in a sense, in the mouth of an apostate. Whatever he does know, is still not useful. Apostates are abandoned. Men cast it out, we’re told here. You get rid of what is worthless to you. These false professors should be thrown out of the church because there’s a danger that others will be contaminated by them. And the Lord concludes with a solemn warning here, he that hath an ear, let him. here. When you read that phrase in the book of Revelation, you know it comes from Christ because he’s the one that spoke in the gospel. It’s clear that Christ is the one writing the letters or sending the letters. Christ would have you pay particular attention to what he said. He’s telling us here, listen carefully to what I’m. had it said. Take it to heart. of trouble. He goes back to the city of destruction. My friends, he’s doomed. He’s doomed. He’s unprepared for the hardships that were associated with discipleship. How easily he was turned back. How easily. I think about Mr. Christian, I’m thinking, man, he soldiered on to a lot to get there. And we find that he was helped by God or he wouldn’t have made it. God had not strengthened him. Don’t be ignorant of what is required to be Christ’s sight. Jesus sort of lays it out here for you. Think about these things. Think about the parables. Think about carrying the cross. Think about having to hate your father and mother. Maybe forsaking them. Even your children, your wife, in order to follow the Lord. That’s a cost pay and then beware of casting aside your discipleship and becoming an apostate else there is no hope for you whatsoever. Well, may God bless us this morning with His Holy Word as we ponder this solemn passage.