Discipleship 101

Proper 18 Year C, Luke 14:25-35

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

told by Luke that Jesus is on the road again. And we've been told this all the way back in chapter nine, verse 51, when Luke tells us that Jesus is determined to go to Jerusalem. We know what waits ahead for Jesus in Jerusalem. It is the whole story of Christianity, of Christ dying for us and for forgiveness of sins so that we could be restored back to God. He will undergo a bloody beating and endure the cross and he will die for us. That's what we know because we've read the gospels. But then Luke tells us that now a large crowd has been gathering and is following after Jesus. So Jesus is increasing in his influence and those who are following after him, we can use the word disciple here, which means follower of Jesus, right? Are more. There are new disciples. There are new followers. And Jesus takes this opportunity to stop and turn to the large crowd of his new followers. followers and begin to tell them the qualification of what they are about to embark on. That if you are going to be a follower of me, if you want to be my disciple, there's a few things you need to understand. There's a few things you need to know. And Jesus, in Luke's account, gives us five qualifications that make us disciples. And I would have you notice in this text, first and foremost, before we dive into these five qualifications of what it means to be a disciple, that we do not get to determine what makes a disciple. A lot of times we would like to renegotiate the terms and the standard for our relationship with Jesus, because we often don't want to abide by what he determines. But that is not how the kingdom of God works. There is one king. There's one king of kings, and that is Jesus. There is one who gets to dictate to those who follow after him what their life will look like. And he dictates it by showing them and doing the very thing he is going to be asking them to do. So keep in mind, as we review these qualifications, these five qualifications of what it means to truly follow after Jesus, these are things that Jesus himself does. And that defines the life of a disciple. You're not a disciple of Jesus with your own identity. Your identity is actually that of Jesus Christ. What he has done, you now begin to do in your life. And we're going to see this. But I just wanted to paint this picture for you as we walk through these qualifications that you don't get to renegotiate these. These are something that are just, they're not extracurricular. These are mandated by King Jesus himself. And that bears a lot of weight because as we hear him tell us what he expects from his followers, we have to reconcile whether or not we are living and abiding by those qualifications. Unfortunately, there might be some in this very room that might be discouraged to say, I don't meet those qualifications. There might be great encouragement and joy this morning to say, praise be to God that I can have assurance from these qualifications that I am following after Jesus. Regardless, this is the standard. There is no self-proclaimed Christians. Sure, you might hear somebody say, I'm a Christian, but they don't get to determine whether or they are a Christian. Jesus determines those who are his. He is the one that says, if you follow after me and want to be my disciple, then you will meet these criteria. You will have these qualifications. So let's dive in. Let's assess our own lives this morning together, you and me, to see whether or not we meet these qualifications and where we lack and see what we might be able to do about it through the Holy Spirit The first qualification that Jesus gives us is allegiance. That is what we meet first in verse 26. It says, Man, Jesus doesn't hold back on the first qualification. And what he teaches all those new followers that are now following him as he's going to go die, which they are not aware of, he's giving them the precursor, the prelude. He's saying, you have to be willing to forsake every relationship and take hold of a relationship you have with me. A Allegiance is paramount. It is the top and end all. I am going to ask of you things that you may not be wanting to do, but if you do not follow through, you will not be my disciple. I will not have any disciples, Jesus says, that is not willing to do the exact same thing I am going to go and do for them. How has Jesus separated himself from his family? How has Jesus demonstrated his own allegiance to his disciples, his followers? If you remember, even earlier on in Luke chapter 8, Jesus is teaching. There's actually an unclean spirit that he casts out, and the people are all in the rage. They're saying like, oh, he's casting out demons by Beelzebub. They're associating Jesus with Satan himself. And Jesus says, that doesn't make any logical sense. How can a house that's divided even stand? But because he's doing all this, the word on the street spreads and his mom and his brothers make their way all the way to this house where he's teaching. And the house is jam-packed. And this is what we learn in Luke chapter 8. And his mother and his brothers came to him and they were unable to get to him because of the crowd. And it was reported to him, Jesus, your mother and your brothers are standing outside wishing to see you. But Jesus answered and he said to them, my mother and my brothers are Jesus even demonstrates his own beloved mother and his own blood brothers pale in comparison to his mother and brothers and to his family that believes in God's word and trusts in it. Jesus shows that those who abide by God's word and worship God with their lives, that demonstrate their allegiance primarily to God, those are the true family. Those are the family of God. And there is no greater family to place your name in. And this is hard for us. I even pride myself in being named after my own father, who though we had struggles in life, towards the end of his life, I had a great relationship. He showed up for me when nobody else would. He demonstrated what true fatherhood is, which is regardless of what you do, Bruce, you are going to be my son. Even when I looked him square in the eye and said, Dad, I am so sorry that I have shamed this family. Him in his own Larry-ness, because that's his name, Larry, he was just like, I dare anybody to come up and tell me the horrific things you've done. I dare them, you know. There's a father fighting for his son. And even that, even our close relationships that we have with good family has to take a back seat to Jesus. Don't kill the messenger because Jesus has said so in his word. I'm just telling you what the qualification is. If you really want to follow Jesus, you have to consider that that relationship is paramount, that you don't forsake it for some other relationship, that it's Jesus and him alone. He has your heart. He is the prize. He is your true family. Total allegiance. Jesus begins, heaven, to define what discipleship, to follow after him. And why? Because he gives his total allegiance. He bears his whole life for you. And he won't settle for anything less. He's looking for reciprocation. He's looking for a bride that will reciprocate the exact same things that he's willing to give. This is one of the things that I think Melissa and I agree on the most is when we get frustrated with each other, when we're at tension with each other, we really can't stand it. And even though I would like to give her the silent treatment and act like she doesn't exist and just to show her I'm mad, I can't stand it. And we go in and we say, we got to reconcile. We got to reciprocate and be willing to love each other. Like this, we got to reciprocate this love. We don't let these foxes come into our house. We get rid of them. We want to love each other and want to reciprocate that love. I don't want to be, I don't want to bear the only weight in this relationship being committed to you and to love. I want to see that reciprocated. All of us want that. We want to love and to be loved in return. And Jesus says that's allegiance. Jesus says, He says, I demand nothing less, but your allegiance to me because my allegiance is given to you. But the second might be even more sobering. He says, there has to be a life exchange here. Verses 26, 27 says, at the end of 26, it says, and even his own life, If he doesn't lay down even his own life, even if he doesn't hate even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. See, right after all the relationships, Jesus says and ends with, You got to hate your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, your children, and love me more than all of them. But yet you also need to hate your own life. You got to bear your own cross. What does that mean? To bear your own cross, to carry the cross, the way Jesus carried it for us. What does the cross represent? It represents death, destruction. It says you've got to bear that. You got to carry that. You mean to tell me, Jesus, I got to embrace death? He says, absolutely, because you have a flesh and a heart that's against me, that's opposed to me, and is sinful, it's rotten, and it needs to be remade. And I need you to be committed to be putting it to death. You need to carry the cross and get over yourself and lose your life. Because Jesus promises that if you lose your life, You will find new life, a better life. So you've got to hate this old life because I'm going to ask you to leave it behind. I'm going to ask you to bury it six feet down and never resurrect it. And then I'm going to give you a new life. And I want you to live into that life. And that life looks like my own life. This is how Paul would say it. Paul would say it in Philippians 1.21. He says, for me, for me, I, Paul, to live is Christ. My life is Jesus. It's Christ. My life is Christ. And to die is gain. Paul says, I'm in a win-win situation because if I die, my flesh is dead. The sin is gone and I'll be resurrected. But if I continue to live, everything that I do is Jesus. Everything I do. He would go on to saying to the church at Galatia, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Again, Jesus isn't asking you to do anything that he didn't do. He gave you his life and he's asking you to give up your life and give it to him. And he's going to give you new life. What do you mean I have to, what do I have to give up? Like, do I have to give up everything, Jesus? Like, there's some cool things I do in my life. There's some traditions I embrace. Like, do I get to bring those into this relationship? Depends. But there's probably some things you got to let go. Things you can't be doing anymore. Things that you should be, and if you can't, and if you're struggling with getting rid of them in your life, at least you're in the process of moving them out of your life. You're doing whatever it takes to orient yourself towards living and embracing the new life in Jesus Christ. You're no longer your own, Paul would go on to say. And this speaks to what Jesus is saying. Hate your own life. You know why? Because your life isn't even yours. Because as Jesus is heading towards Jerusalem, he goes to make payment and to purchase every single life of his followers. That's what Jesus is doing. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 6. He says,"'Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?' Let that sink in.'" Because I'll just speak for myself. I have to be reminded of this probably first thing every morning. Because I take on my day. I determine the standard. I determine what I'm doing. As if I own my own life. And the scriptures declare that you, if you're a follower of Jesus, you don't own your life. For you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. If you want to follow after Jesus and be called a disciple, you've got to lay down your life and embrace the life Jesus has for you because you're not even your own. If you follow Jesus, then he says, I purchased your whole entire life. I owe you. I own you. And it's a good thing that he does because you're either a slave to sin or you get to be a slave to Christ. We are made to serve. We were created to serve and to serve God, to love him with our whole entire fiber and being. And if we're not doing that, then you are serving and loving something else. You're not neutral because we were all created to give ourselves to something. And a lot of us give ourselves in wrong places and into wrong things that might even seem good and right. But Jesus says, you don't get to determine that. I'll determine that for you because I know what is wise, good, and right. And then Jesus moves on to the third thing. He's asked of us total allegiance. He's asked us to give up our lives and embrace the one that he's going to give us, the life exchange. Now he's going to ask us to cover the cost. You've got to consider what I'm asking. If you really, if you really want to follow me, if you really want to be my disciple, you've got to be willing to cover the cost. What does that mean? Well, he paints us a picture. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. This one speaks to me because I cannot stand not completing something I started out doing. When we moved into our house a couple of years ago, Melissa knows this about me. It's probably one of the frustrating things that she finds frustrating because she could just say, hey, we got our boxes into the garage and now let's get some rest and tomorrow we'll start unpacking them. I'm like, nope, we're going to not rest until everything is in place. All the bookshelves are aligned and displayed in orderly fashion. All the dishes are in the car. I'm just like, I'm all or nothing. I don't have a dimmer switch. and some of the looks I'm getting right now. Like, dang, Bruce, that's right. I'm all in or I'm all out. And Jesus is saying, like, you need to consider the cost. So for me, like, maybe before you move, Bruce, you need to curb some of your desires there. Is it realistic to do these things? Jesus is saying, if you really want to follow me, you see the great things. This crowd was seeing everything that Jesus was doing. They were amazed by his teaching and his wisdom. He was He was healing people that couldn't heal themselves and couldn't find even doctors to heal them. Jesus was offering to them that was something otherworldly and they wanted this. And Jesus says, if you really want it and you want to come after me and follow after me, consider the cost because it's going to be great. Consider the cost and cover it. whatever it costs, be willing to lay it down. And isn't this what the 12 disciples did? They all, their whole lives, all their lives, all 12 of them was taken for the sake of Christ. A Roman prefect would come up and just ask them the simplest question. Are you a Christian? And you would think like, well, just say no. What's it hurt? Because our word is our bond. He said, absolutely. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. And they were led away to die. If you knew that 30 days from now that somebody was going to ask you about your relationship with Jesus and that after asking you that they were going to take your life, That's the cost that we need to consider today. And I would even go a little bit further, that if you're willing to say yes, Bruce, I would lay my life down. I consider that cost. My life will be forfeit. If somebody wants to ask me about Jesus and then wants to martyr me, I'm committed. I will not fear death. That's encouraging. But that's like up here. What about all the other little things down here? It's like when two people get married and they exchange vows, right? They're committing their life to one another. And it says in the scriptures, a husband should be willing to lay down his life for his bride. But then that husband isn't willing to scratch her back when she has an itch, isn't willing to take out the trash when it needs to, isn't willing to come and help her in any way, shape or form. But he says, but I'll die for her. How? If you're not faithful and willing to do the small things, how on the Sam Hill can we believe that you'd be willing to lay down your life for the end all big thing? That's what Jesus is saying. You've got to come after me. If you want to come after me, you've got to consider the cost. You've got to maybe be willing to be homeless. You've got to maybe be willing to take care of the poor and needy who I pay attention to. You've got to be willing to be my bride and to gather with my bride. You have to be willing to worship me above all things. Then he moves on to the fourth thing. He says, seek peace. What do you mean seek peace? I didn't know I was in opposition to anybody. He says this, or what king? Let's just claim that you're kings of your own lives. When he sets out to meet another king in battle, there's that tension. Will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming up against him with 20,000. Or else, while the other is still far off, he sends a and asks for terms of peace. This is what Jesus is saying. If you want to be king of your own life, you got a problem because there is king of the cosmos. And one day he's going to come and judge. And you can either be in opposition to his kingdom or you can delegate some peace. You can be in talks to negotiate peace because your army is way less than his army. And Jesus is saying, if you're going to follow after me, you got to surrender your kingdom. You got to be at peace with the king of kings. That's wise. And Jesus will come back and he will judge the world. He will judge those who aren't following after him, who are not his disciples. But those who are his disciples have already made peace with him. And now there's no condemnation and no judgment for them. So Jesus says, we have to surrender our kingdom. If we're not willing to do that, then he will tell us, you are not my disciple. And lastly, influence. We have to be influential as his disciples, just like he is. Therefore, salt is good, but even salt has become tasteless. But even if salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It'll be useless either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Here's what salt's good for. It makes things taste better. It fertilizes and it preserves. This is what it means to be the salt of the earth. This is exactly what Jesus is. about the salt of the earth. We're literally talking about the ministry of Jesus for three years on this earth. Jesus was nothing but making everything taste better. In the scriptures, we're invited to come, taste and see that the Lord is good. And every person that encountered Jesus and received a blessing from him, tasted and saw that he was good because Jesus was salty. And not only that, but Jesus preserved the 12 disciples. He kept them. He prayed to the Father and said, I have kept every one of them in me besides the son of perdition. He fertilized. We just looked at it a couple of weeks ago, maybe last week, talking about that there's this fig tree in the midst of this vineyard and it's rotten. It's not producing any fruit. And Jesus uses this parable to say like, let me dig around it and put fertilizer in it. And then let's see if it'll produce fruit. Jesus is fertilizing everywhere he goes and life is taking shape and it's forming and it's coming to fruition. This is the exact same things that we need to do if we're going to follow after Jesus. We just don't stand back and listen to what Jesus has done. Jesus has said, here are the keys to the kingdom. I'm ascending to the Father. You all go and be the salt of the earth the way I was. That's what he's saying. If you follow after me, you're going to have to influence your area around you. You're going to have to speak about the good news of the kingdom. You're going to have to pray and intercede on others for healing. You're going to have to tend to those that I want you to tend to, to be salt of the earth. And if you're not willing to do that, you're not my disciple, Jesus says. So those are the five qualifications that Jesus has about people he will declare are his disciples, followers. So the question comes, are you ready, willing, and able to follow Jesus? Maybe you haven't been following Jesus, but that's still the question. Are you ready, willing, and able to be Jesus' disciple? Do you want him to declare to you that you are his? That's something you can't do for yourself. You might try, but you might one day be in jeopardy of being ridiculed because you end up falling short. We need to be confirmed by Jesus. Well, how can I know? What assurance can I have that Jesus would confirm that I am his disciple? You begin to orient your life to these qualifications. You begin to sit under more of Jesus' teaching with his word. Preaching and teaching, learning and studying the scriptures together. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens each other. And we're trying to sharpen each other to make ourselves better disciples. To see if we can move further into these qualifications so that Jesus can confirm that we are his. Do we gather together? If you want to know if you're his disciple, one of the things you should be identified is with his bride. I will promise you this. that we can have as many Bible studies as you want. We can do as many ministry opportunities as you want. But I firmly believe that our acts of worship, when we gather as his body on Sunday mornings, what we do together and participate together does train us to meet these qualifications. Each and every Sunday. And then they help inform what we do privately to continue to meet those qualifications. It's not the other way around. You don't get to go home in your own private and personal life, self-identifying as a Christian, and then neglect the one place where all Christians are identified, which is the church, and the way all Christians participate together to do, and that is worship. Your whole life can worship God, but there is a particular way place and time and actions that we participate in together that inform us and teach us and form us into the image of his bride and that is here and that's what we're doing and let me leave you with this word of encouragement to those here at Fairview Methodist This is a very sobering, right, good, challenging lesson of the gospel. That's why I've taken extra time this morning to speak of it. And we still got celebration and thanksgiving to partake in. But this is the type of time of the worship where the Lord wants you to know his word and what he says to you today. And let me just give you a word of encouragement. There is patterns of faithfulness and allegiance here at Fairview Methodist. I see the same faces. We share together. I'm encouraged by this. I love this church, not just because I'm a pastor. If I wasn't a pastor, I'd still want to be a part of this church because you guys embody what the bride looks like. Can we do more? Absolutely. I'm not saying we're perfect, but I am saying that being a disciple isn't just, and then we're fully disciples. It's a long and slow burn. It takes a lifetime to develop. And I would say that we're not necessarily beginning, but we are growing in becoming his disciples. And I think that's encouraging. But in order for us to continue to endure and persevere, we need to have before us these qualifications and stir each other up to live out our lives to be a disciple of Christ. That it's okay for me to wonder if you haven't been here for three or four months, how are you doing? How can I encourage you? Or it's okay for me to encourage you to participate in worship alongside with one another so that we're all equally lifting up Jesus in praise and worship because this is the most important thing we do throughout our week. It's okay to pray for one another when we struggle with our burdens, to encourage each other to endure and persevere because we are in the business of putting down our flesh to death and embracing the new life that Jesus makes. I'm encouraged because I think we are a city on a hill. We are salt of the earth. I think we could be saltier, and I think we could be brighter, but I think we are doing what God wants us to be doing, and I'm just asking that we continue to ride this out. Now, we're not in a hurry, but we are taking one step at a time together. You don't have to do this alone, but we do it together so that Jesus can declare to us here at Fairview Methodist, they are my disciples. Let's pray.