In the middle of the second century, Polycarp, a leader in the early church who studied under the apostle John, stood before a council in Rome ready to be martyred. When given the opportunity to address his service to Christ and recant for those things which the officials found him worthy of death, he answered, “Eighty and six years have I served him, and he hath done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”1
In one sense, this is another heroic story that we want to read to our children and motivate them to understand what real courage looks like, what special road some have walked for the cause of Christ, and what exceptional cost may be demanded from them. However, in another sense, this story is simply the outflow of what anyone very well could face who follows Christ. This story can be seen as no other than the natural end for anyone who answers the call of Jesus to come follow him. And that statement should not be surprising one for us because Jesus tells his followers no less on multiple occasions. One of those occasions comes in the text we’re studying this morning, Luke 14:25-35.
As we’ve mentioned before, it is rare for Luke (or any of the gospel writers) to note that a great multitude of people were following Jesus without Luke noting that Jesus’ next words were sure to drive many of them away. Our text this morning does not deviate from this trend. Just as Luke writes, “Great crowds accompanied him” (14:25), he follows it up with Jesus saying, “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” (14:26).
So, why does Jesus do this? It’s not because he gets pleasure simply from seeing how many people he can drive away by saying the most outlandish thing that comes to his mind. It’s because he is teaching the crowd what true discipleship looks like. You can imagine that in a crowd of great numbers that there would be many following him for less than devout reasons. No doubt many simply longed to be healed, watch others healed, or witness any number of miracles. However, Jesus was not interested in curious spectators following him. He wanted disciples. Therefore, he turns to address the crowd, telling them what discipleship looks like and what he demands from his followers.
This morning, then, I want us to hear Jesus’ words and respond to them. What does it mean to follow Christ? What is the cost of following him? What should we tell others when we’re witnessing in light of this text? And what do we need to change in our lives in light of this text? These are some of the questions I want us to answer this morning as we spend time looking at this text. Let us then turn to see Jesus’ teaching concerning the cost of discipleship.
As aforementioned, Jesus first addresses the crowd saying, “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” (14:26). On its face, this statement means that one cannot be a Christian (a disciple, one who follows Christ) unless he hates his relatives and himself. But how does that square with Jesus’ teaching that we are to love others, even our enemies?
Obviously Jesus’ words here are a rhetorical device of hyperbole. Jesus is not commanding bitter resentment toward our parents, spouse, or children. He is not commanding the disposition of our hearts to be against people. In fact, he condemns such actions in commanding us to love others even as we love ourselves. But what Jesus is saying here is that our affection and allegiance to Christ must be greater than our affection and allegiance to anyone or anything else. If your response to Jesus is going to be, “I’ll follow you and obey you unless my parents, spouse, or children prefer me to do otherwise,” then you should not follow Christ. Or again, if you would say to Christ, “I’ll follow and obey you, but I want to make sure I get some of my own wants along the way,” then you should not follow Christ. He will not accept that kind of half-hearted commitment.
This command becomes a very applicable one when someone is converted and their family disapproves. It is common within some religious cultures for a family to hold a funeral for one who becomes a Christian because from that point forward they consider the individual dead to them. To that individual Jesus is saying, “Decide the one to whom you will give greater affection and allegiance.” And if the answer is “my family” then Jesus says, “You cannot be my disciple.”
But I’ve wondered how this command affects us at Cornerstone. Perhaps some of us have family members who have disdain for us and our decision to follow Christ. If that is the case, listen carefully to Christ’s words we have just read. But for most of us, our families are supportive. If we have a spouse, he or she encourages us to obey. And we do not let our children rule the home, regardless of any demands they might state against our family obeying Christ. However, I wonder if we fail to honor this verse by having greater affection and allegiance to relationships that aren’t even real?
Could it be that some of us are not whole-heartedly following Christ because we allow our lives to be consumed with moping about our lack of a spouse? Is it that some of us are not pouring ourselves into Christ and his church because we want a relationship that simply doesn’t yet exist? If that’s the case, then we’re sinning. We’re making an ideal out of a husband or wife that we don’t even have so that we do not serve Christ as we should.
We can do the same thing with children. Most of are no doubt on guard against allowing our children’s wishes to drive our home and divert us from obeying Christ. However, we need to realize that if the desire to have children when we have none cripples us so that we withdraw and refuse to invest in the body of Christ, then we are committing idolatry. We are giving greater affection and allegiance to the idea of children than to following and obeying Christ.
Therefore, let us hear this text as a warning. Nothing and no one can have greater affection and allegiance in your life than Christ, whether it be a relationship that is real or simply one that you long to have. So, let us ask ourselves, do we make decisions not to obey and honor Christ in certain areas of life because of our husband, or wife, or children, or mother, or father? If we do, we must realize that it is sin and repent immediately, trusting in God’s grace for forgiveness. Discipleship demands nothing less than giving one’s greatest affection and allegiance to Christ.
And Jesus then continues. Having ended his last statement focusing each individual on himself, he now concentrates on our thoughts about our own lives even more deeply as he declares, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (14:27).
There are all kinds of things we like to say about the phrase, “bearing one’s cross.” It’s easy for us to label difficulties in our lives as “crosses we must bear.” However, I think there is really only one way Jesus’ original audience would have heard this command. They would have heard Jesus saying, “If you want to follow me, you must die.”
To bear one’s cross meant to walk the road to one’s death sentence. Crucifixion, being hanged on a cross until you suffocate and die, is the reference to bearing one’s cross. Jesus is not giving us a pretty illustration. He meant that to follow him, we must die.
Now, we could respond to that by saying, “But many people who follow Christ do not die because they follow him. It’s not as if everyone who is a Christian necessarily becomes a martyr.” And that is indeed true. It’s not as if we’ll all walk the road of Stephen in Acts 7 or Polycarp years later. However, we must definitely understand that if we want to follow Christ, we must be willing and ready to give up even our lives themselves for him. He demands nothing less.
That means that if we find ourselves in a position where someone is saying, “Renounce Christ or I will kill you,” we cannot respond by saying to the Lord, “Whoa, I didn’t bargain for this.” Jesus has told us very clearly in this text that we must be willing to give up life itself to follow and obey him. So we need to understand that clearly this morning, for that scenario may not be as ridiculous as we like to think it is. Right now, in many parts of the world that very thing is going on and it has happened throughout the history of the church.
However, my great fear is that we all tell ourselves that we would courageously profess Christ in that moment of death and yet fail to give up our fleshly demands now. My fear is that we’re more attracted to obedience on the big stage than we are in the mundane areas of life. We tell ourselves we would climb the highest mountain, swim the deepest ocean, and die the most gruesome of deaths to display our allegiance to Christ but we won’t turn the television off or get out of bed earlier so that we might minister to and pray for his people.
It’s kind of like reading stories of dragon slayers to young boys. We need to do that kind of thing so that we remind them of the need to have courage and protect others. These qualities are essential to manhood. But it’s also dangerous for our sons to hear such tales. The danger is that our sons will constantly long to fight dragons without realizing that the fight to display biblical manhood occurs daily. You will not fight a dragon in life, but you will constantly fight the desire to be lazy in the workplace, wasting your time on the internet when you should be working. You will constantly fight the temptation to sleep a few more minutes each day and not rise and pray for yourself, your family, and the church. You will constantly fight the temptation to treat certain sins as offenses which can really be ignored. Each and every day you must live your life in every detail as one who says, “My life is for Christ.” You must be as one who is ready to die, and that means nothing less than living all of live unto and for the glory of Jesus Christ.
These things are hard. They are challenging. We might even say, “I don’t know that anyone presented the Christian life to me in those terms.” So Jesus tells us to take a long, hard look at what he demands from his followers before you profess faith in him.
In verses 28-32, Jesus encourages his hearers (in light of the demands he has just given) to count the cost before running headlong into following him. He does it through two illustrations. First, he asks who would build a tower without first sitting down and figuring up whether you have enough money and resources to finish it. If you don’t first consider the cost, then you would be like a man who lays the foundation and then realizes that’s all he has the resources to do. Thus, the foundation sits there as a continual reminder of his foolishness and people come by, look at it, and mock him. Second, he asks what king does not consider whether his army is able to battle the opposing coming army. That is, if you have 10,000 men and the approaching enemy has 20,000, what king would not sit down and see if he can match up? What king would not consider the cost of engaging the enemy in battle? And, once he sees that to engage in battle would be like sending his men to the slaughter, he decides to send a delegate to negotiate peace and spare his men’s lives.
Jesus’ point is obviously that giving greater affection and allegiance to him in this life will cost you. And being willing to die for him and living in light of that will cost you. Perhaps it will cost you familial relationships. It will definitely cost you many sinful desires that your flesh will crave. It may even cost you your life. That is what it means to follow Christ. Therefore, we must consider the cost before we profess faith in Christ. We must count the cost before we claim to be his follower. And we must encourage others to do so as well.
We do no man a favor if in witnessing to him we do not make clear that following Christ will cost him everything. We do no man a favor if in witnessing to him we do not make clear that before he professes faith in Christ he better be prepared to die. Being a disciple of Jesus means no less. He must have our greatest affection and allegiance, and we must live our lives utterly unto him, being ready to give our lives to the death for him.
In addition, we must declare that all our possessions are his to use.
Jesus concludes the illustrations saying, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (v. 34). Following Christ means renouncing our every possession. Now, does this mean that every believer must give away every possession? No, for then we would violate commands to clothe and feed our own families. But nor does this statement by Jesus mean simply something like, “If you’re going to follow Jesus you must verbally claim that what you have belongs to Christ even if you do with it whatever you desire.” No, it must mean more than that.
I do not think this even means simply that we say, “Jesus, if you want to use anything that’s mine for your purpose, feel free to let me know.” Now, it certainly means no less than that. But I believe this demand by Jesus means that we must actively seek God as to what he would have us do with our possessions.
I just don’t think in light of this text that we can be a people that follow Jesus with a clear conscience unless we make it obvious that we know that our possessions are not simply for our own desires. Rather, we give to the church, to the advancement of missions, to relieve those in need. We seek how we might aid our brothers and sisters be cared for. We spend time fasting and praying that God would make us sensitive as to how his Holy Spirit might direct us in using the possessions he has graciously put in our hands. But what must be clear is that we, as Christians, realize that everything we have (from our paychecks to our houses) are given by God to us and must released in our hearts to be used for his purposes. The Lord may not direct us to relinquish all our possessions, but may it never be that we refuse to give unto the Lord because we think our possessions are ours.
So, following Christ means great cost to us. We can put no one ahead of him. We cannot see our life as our own but must be willing to die at any time for his honor. And we must relinquish every possession unto God to be used for his purposes.
Do we live this way? Do we think this way? Is our life characterized in this way? This is not the way of the world. This is not our natural way of thinking. This manner of living is distinctly Christian.
But what if we don’t want to do this? What if our thoughts are, “I just wanted to make sure I went to heaven when I died. I don’t want to live my life utterly unto Christ even in the mundane things”? Jesus gives us one last illustration to answer this question.
He declares, “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (vv. 34-35).
This illustration regarding salt might not catch us at first glance. But note this comparison. Having spoken of these unique demands upon his disciples, Jesus begins talking about salt. He points out that it is good. In biblical times salt was used to preserve food and even fertilize the ground. Therefore, it would often be placed in the ground or put in manure to make the fertilizer even more appealing to the would-be purchaser. However, the salt they used could lose its saltiness, that which made it distinctively salt. And Jesus is saying that if salt loses that element that makes it distinctively salt, then it is good for nothing but to be discarded.
In the same way, the message is that there are distinct elements that characterize a disciple of Jesus Christ. He is one whose affection for and allegiance to Christ are greater than his affection for and allegiance to anyone else. He is one who loves Christ so much and is so focused on living unto him that he is ready to die for him. He is one who will claim no possession as his own put acknowledge that everything that is his is first Christ’s and will be used for his honor.
Therefore, if you refuse to obey and allow these elements to characterize you, then you will not be characterized by the very elements necessary to be called a disciple. And, as the metaphor shows us, you will be of no use to Christ and will not be accepted before him on that final day. Thus, we can say that to deny obedience to these demands is equivalent to denying that you are a follower of Christ.
So, what will be our response today? Count the cost of following Christ. He demands everything, absolute allegiance. He demands that we constantly remind ourselves when deciding what we do with our time, possessions, or anything else that we’ve forfeited the right to be driven by our own desires but must bring every thought and every decision into submission to his will. So, count the cost. As we noted in looking at Polycarp, following Christ may literally cost you your life.
As Polycarp then readied himself to die, he said, “You threaten the fire that burns for an hour and in a little while is quenched; for you know not of the fire of the judgement to come, and the fire of the eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly.” So, though I say to you, “Count the cost.” And I say to you today, count the cost. Let me also warn you that if you do not find Christ worth following it’s because you do not understand the cost of facing him in judgment as his enemy. Therefore, I plead with you, follow Christ. And if you are a believer, may we proclaim as we come to the table that we have indeed died with Christ and now live unto him. Amen.