Key Truth: Luke
wrote Luke 14:25-35 to teach believers that discipleship calls for
allegiance and sacrifice.
Key Application: Today I
want to show you what God’s Word says about discipleship.
Pray and Read:
Luke 14:25-35
Contextual Notes:
Since the beginning of his Gospel,
Luke has focused on the importance of walking in faith and not in unbelief.
After the major shift in the Gospel at Luke 9:51, Jesus leaves his ministry in
Galilee and turns with determination toward Jerusalem and His coming Suffering,
Death, and Resurrection. Luke’s message of trusting Christ sharpens, and his
warning against unbelief hones in on the very religious yet unbelieving Jewish
leadership.
We see Jesus’ rising determination
in his call to realign our priorities to those of our resolute Lord: the
priority of His Gospel to the nations (Luke 10:1-24); the priority of our love
for our neighbors (Luke 10:25-37); the priority of His Presence (Luke 10:38-42)
lived by the priority of prayer (Luke 11:1-13); the priority of Jesus’
authority (Luke 11:14-28) which calls us to the priority of repentance (Luke
11:29-36).
Luke
10:1-24 The Priority of His
Gospel (for the nations)
Luke 10:25-37 The Priority of Your Love (for your
neighbor)
Luke
10:38-42 The Priority of His
Presence
Luke 11:1-13 The
Priority of Your Prayer
Luke
11:14-28 The Priority of His
Authority
Luke
11:29-36 The Priority of Your
Repentance
Next Jesus condemns the wrong kind
of religion – dead religion that is devoid of relationship with Him (Luke
11:37-54). Then he warns his disciples of hypocrisy and points away from the
fear of man to the right kind of fear, the fear of God (Luke 12:1-12). Jesus next
warns against materialism but instead to focus on being rich toward God (Luke
12:13-21), then warns against worry and encourages his disciples to trust the
Lord for provision (Luke 12:22-34). The right kind of focus follows (Luke
12:35-59), then Luke’s outline calls us to the right kind of religion, one of
repentance and grace (Luke 13:1-19).
Luke
11:37-54 The Wrong Kind of
Religion (not ritual, but relationship)
Luke
12:1-12 The Right Kind of
Fear (not of men, but of God)
Luke
12:13-21 The Wrong Kind of
Focus (not greed, but God)
Luke
12:22-34 The Wrong Kind of Fear (not worry, but trust)
Luke 12:35-59 The Right
Kind of Focus (on
eternity, not this world)
Luke 13:1-9 The Right Kind of Religion (not pride, but
repentance)
With
a series of illustrations, Jesus reminds us that the world is rushing toward
Christ’s Second Coming. To be ready, believers must serve God actively (Luke
12:35-53) and unbelievers must make peace with God before it is too late (Luke
12:54-59) with the right kind of religion, one of repentance (Luke 13:1-9).
Luke
13:10-21 Kingdom of Grace (to the
nations)
Luke
13:22-30 Kingdom of Repentance
(deadline with consequences)
Luke
14:1-24 Kingdom of Provision
(healing, honor, harvest)
Luke
14:25-35 Kingdom of Commitment
(allegiance, sacrifice)
Jesus
encourages us to embrace the Kingdom of Grace (Luke 13:10-17) which begins humbly
and grows rapidly to embrace the nations (Luke 13:18-21). It is a Kingdom of
Repentance with a strict deadline (Luke 13:22-30), its rejection having dire
consequences (Luke 13:31-35). It is a Kingdom of Provision of healing (Luke
14:1-6), honor (Luke 14:7-14), and harvest (Luke 14:15-24). It is a Kingdom of
Commitment calling for allegiance (Luke 14:25-27) and sacrifice (Luke
14:28-35).
Sermon Points:
1. Discipleship
calls for allegiance (Luke 14:25-27)
2. Discipleship
calls for sacrifice (Luke 14:28-35)
Exposition: Note
well,
1.
DISCIPLESHIP CALLS FOR ALLEGIANCE (Luke
14:25-27)
a.
From the Pharisee’s house, Jesus is
again on the move toward Jerusalem. Large crowds are following the Lord. With the coming rejection of Him by
His own people, those who identified themselves with Him faced great personal
peril. Knowing this, Christ spoke a word to the crowds, defining discipleship
and what it entails. The demand that Jesus disciple value the needy above
respectability (Luke 14:7-24) takes away the right to remain socially upward.
b.
Luke 14:25-26 – (cf. Matt 6:24; John 12:25) First, Jesus says that family
relationships must yield to love for Him. Jesus’ statement is offensive to his
hearers in a society where honor of parents was considered virtually the
highest obligation and one’s family was usually one’s greatest joy. Only God
demanded the wholehearted devotion Jesus demands here (Deut 6:4-5).
c.
Hate
here is used in the sense of decisive rejection of competing claims to one’s
allegiance. We must understand the Lord’s use of hate in terms of Jewish
hyperbole (Remember the Lord says we must love even our enemies (Matt 5:44;
Luke 6:27, 35). The words “love” and “hate” can express emotion, but Jesus is
using them to express the will as in God’s use of Jacob and Esau in Mal 1:2-3
and Rom 9:13. God chose Jacob. He had set Esau, the firstborn, aside. To love
is to choose or to submit to. To hate is to set aside or refuse to submit to.
d.
Luke 14:27 – Carry his cross. A familiar sight for Jews under
Roman occupation, but shocking to connect criminal execution to Messianic
promise. Roman prisoners were forced to carry the horizontal cross beam (the patibulum) to the place of execution
(Luke 23:26). The image reflects not only self-denial, but humiliation and
sacrificial death. Count the cost. But choose to follow Jesus to the end.
e.
APPLICATION: Disciples must reject every other
authority and be solely under the authority of Christ. Unless they are willing
to do so, they cannot be Christ’s disciples. They must hate their own lives,
i.e., they must set aside their own wills and accept the will of Christ for
their lives. In order to be a true disciple, one must be willing to identify
with Christ even though He was rejected. The Cross for Christ was the test of
His obedience to the will of the Father and the sign of His rejection by
Israel. One must be willing to identify with the rejected One to be willing to
assume what is involved in that identification in order to be Christ’s
disciple.
2.
DISCIPLESHIP CALLS FOR SACRIFICE (Luke
14:28-35)
a.
Luke 14:28-30 – Count the cost: Having laid down the requirements
for a disciple, Christ encouraged His hearers to consider the cost of being a
disciple. He uses three illustrations of spiritual cost-benefit analysis: an
unfinished tower, an unsuccessful army, and flavorless salt. The builder did not
begin until he had considered the cost (Luke 14:28-30). Just a few years
earlier, A.D. 27, a poorly built amphitheater had collapsed, with about 50,000
casualties, so the image was powerful for Jesus’ hearers.
b.
Luke 14:31-32 – Measure the strength
of the foe: The
king did not go headlong into battle without counting the cost (Luke 14:31-32;
Prov 20:18; 24:6). Herod Antipas had recently lost a war with a neighboring
Roman vassal, so the image of foolhardy war would be meaningful as well to
Jesus’ hearers. They must consider the cost in identifying with Him. Otherwise,
when persecution came they would forsake Christ.
c. ILLUSTRATION: In the 17th Century,
the French
mathematician,
physicist,
inventor, writer and Christian philosopher
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) who developed mathematical probablility theory, put
forward Pascal’s Wager. His idea was that, rationally, whether or not to
believe in Jesus’ Lordship and atonement should depend on two factors: the
value of what you stand to gain or lose by believing or not, and the
probability that it is true. These two things determine the probabilities of
your receiving those gains or losses. The Bible says that belief in Jesus has
finite costs – foregoing the passing pleasures of sin (Heb 11:24; Luke
14:28-35), living an upright life, possible persecution, but the benefit is
eternal life with God, a benefit of infinite value. On the other hand, if you
reject Jesus then you may have finite benefits (enjoying whatever happiness the
world and the Devil offer, being in charge of yourself, doing whatever you
want, etc.), but you will go to hell and be separated forever from God and all
goodness, an infinite cost. Now suppose there is only one chance in a billion
that Jesus is who the Bible says He is and that hell truly exists. Then it is
still absolutely worthwhile to believe in Jesus because although you have a
very high chance of paying some finite cost, nevertheless a tiny chance at an
infinite reward still has infinite value – one billionth of plus-infinity is
till plus-infinity. On the other hand, it is equally non-worthwhile to
disbelieve, because, although you have a high chance of gaining some finite
amount of benefits, even a one-billionth chance of minus-infinity has a value
of minus-infinity, which outweighs all finite benefits. Only those who are
absolutely certain that the Bible is false, who can give absolute zero
probability to its truth, can rationally choose to disbelieve. Everyone is
faced with Pascal’s Wager, and in every case the rational way of counting the
cost always leads to trusting in Jesus.
d. The
Apostle Paul understood this.
In Philippians 3:7-8 (AMP), he says, “7 But
whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to
consider as [one combined] loss for Christ’s sake. 8 Yes,
furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the
priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and
supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively
becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving
and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I
have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in
order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One),”
e.
Luke 14:33 – give up everything: The word here (apotassetai) means “say farewell” when used of a person or
“renounce” when applied to things. Jesus does not say “sell” or “give away,”
but renounce. As disciples of Jesus, we surrender to Him the title deed to all
we possess. From now on we live as those conscious that we are stewards of our
Lord, and that all we have belongs ultimately to Him.
f.
ILLUSTRATION: On California Prayer Walk and on
Operation Restoration in the area of Hope Mills, NC, where there was a high
concentration of witch-craft, because of the truth of Prov. 26:2, our prayer
team renounced ownership or possession in all things, relationships, people,
and affirmed that everything was brought under Lordship of Jesus Christ.
g.
APPLICATION: There must be an inward
resignation toward anything but Christ. There will be times that that inward
separation is what keeps you moving forward in commitment to Christ. There must
be a complete inward surrender of everything to Christ for the sake of Christ
so that when the outward trial comes, we may be prepared to conquer in the
fight. He fights well who has first fought and conquered within, and lives a
surrendered life.
h.
Luke 14:34-35: If one became a disciple without
due thought and then forsake Him under persecution, such a one would be like
salt with no saltiness. Worth nothing. Defection would prove that he was not a
true disciple after all. He would be rejected. (Sodium chloride cannot actually
lose its saltiness, but Dead Sea salt is a mixture of NaCl and other compounds.
When water evaporates from the mixture, the sodium chloride crystallizes first
and may be removed. The gypsum and other impurities remaining is salt which has
lost its saltiness.)
i.
APPLICATION: Let him who has ears hear and hear
the warning! Disciples must put Jesus first in personal relationships (Luke
14:26) and with personal possessions (Luke 14:33). So what must we do? We must
stop being lazy in our commitments. This is not an assignment for a hammock
under a palm tree. We have a job to do, a mission to accomplish. We are not
gathering wildflowers. We are in Satan’s domain to overthrow his work and
establish the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. We must start
demonstrating what we know to be true. We must live the life of a disciple. We
must make a decision what to do when the parent we adore needs our signature to
finalize a less-than-legal business deal. Or our supervisor offers you the
promotion of your dreams, as long as you agree to compromise a few family
priorities. Or you finally find the one you want to marry, but they’re not a
Christian. Christ calls us to obedience. Discipleship is walked out in
obedience.
Invitation:
Sources:
F.F.
Bruce, gen. ed. The International Bible
Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 1212-1213.
Alfred
Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus
the Messiah (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 685-686.
S.
MacLean Gilmour, “Luke.” George Arthur Buttrick, gen. ed., The Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. 8 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1952), 8:259-263.
Paul
John Isaak, “Luke,” Africa Bible
Commentary, Tokunboh Adeyemo, gen. ed., (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 1233.
Craig
Keener, The IVP Bible Background
Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 1993), 230-231.
Dwight
J. Pentecost, The Words and Works of
Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 331-332.
Alfred
Plummer, International Critical Commentary
on Luke, 5th ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1902), 28:
.
Lawrence
O. Richards, The Victor Bible Background
Commentary: New Testament (Wheaton: Victor, 1994), 190.
Lawrence
O. Richards, The Bible Reader’s Companion
(Wheaton: Victor, 1991), 665.
David
H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary
(Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1996), 128-130.
Mark
Strauss. “Luke.” Clinton E. Arnold, gen. ed. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2002), 1:444-446.
Charles
R. Swindoll and Bryce Klabunde, The
Declaration of Something Mysterious: A Study of Luke 10:38-16:18 (Anaheim,
CA: Insight for Living, 1995), 113-120.
Harold
L. Wilmington, The Outline Bible
(Nashville: Tyndale House, 1999), 543.
Preached:
6pm
Sunday, October 14, 2012, at Union Missionary Baptist Church, Rocky Mount, NC
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