INTRODUCTION:

1. Our text tonight is the keynote passage on true discipleship, as opposed to shallow professions of faith in Christ.
2. In the Bible, there is a distinction between discipleship and salvation. Salvation is open to all who will come to Christ (14:23).
3. Discipleship is for believers willing to pay a price (14:25-27).
4. One preacher put it this way, Salvation means coming to the cross and trusting Jesus Christ, while discipleship means carrying the cross and following Jesus Christ (Warren Wiersbe).
5. Our Lord addressed His words to great multitudes of people (14:25). There is a cross to be borne (14:25-27).
6. There is a cost to be counted (14:28-32). Our Lord used two metaphors the cost of building a tower (14:28-30), and the cost of going to battle (14:31, 32).
7. True disciples must be willing to forsake all (14:33).
8. Our Lord said in John 8:31, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.
9. Therefore, a true disciple will continue in the faith.
10. Three times our Lord said, he cannot be my disciple (14:26, 27, 33).
11. I have entitled my message, Have You Counted the Cost?

        Have you counted the cost, if your soul should be lost
        Tho' you gain the whole world for your own?
        Even now it may be that the line you have crossed,
        Have you counted, have you counted the cost?

        There's a line that is drawn by rejecting our Lord,
        Where the call of His Spirit is lost,
        And you hurry along with the pleasure-mad throng - 
        Have you counted, have you counted the cost? A. J. Hodge

 

I. THERE IS A CROSS TO BE BORNE (14:25-27)

1. This doctrine is seldom preached these days. Our hymnbooks are filled with beautiful old hymns like, At the Cross, Lead Me to Calvary, Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross, The Old Rugged Cross, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, and many others, but sadly many churches stopped singing them.
2. And many preachers do not preach about the cross.
3. A number of years ago, A.W. Tozer wrote, The Old Cross and the New.

All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship." The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him.

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul's day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God's approval.

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.
(A. W. Tozer, Man, the Dwelling Place of God, 1966)

4. When you count the cost, consider your family. Many people would rather die and go to hell than have problems with their unsaved family members.
5. And, there are certain Christians who never seem to advance in their Christian life because they allow unsaved family members to hinder them (cf. Luke 14:26, 27).
6. The word hate (14:26) is a word that is often misunderstood and misused.
7. Regarding our Lord s words in Luke 14:26, the word hate here simply means to love less. In other words, "He that comes to me, and does not love his father and mother and other relatives less than he loves me, cannot be my disciple."
8. The Bible never contradicts itself, and the fifth commandment says, Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee (Exodus 20:12).
9. This commandment is repeated several times in the New Testament.
10. In Matthew 15:4 and 19:19, Jesus said, For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother.
11. In Mark 10:19, our Lord said to the rich young ruler, Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother
12. Ephesians 6:1-3 says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
13. Colossians 3:20 says, Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
14. What our Lord is saying in Luke 14:26 is that no one and nothing even our parents or our children or our brothers and sisters should ever come before Him.
15. Yea, and his own life also Luke 14:26.
16. That is why the apostle Paul could say, But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24).
17. Could you honestly say that?
18. We are not to hate our family members in the sense of despising or detesting them, but we are to love them less than we love Christ.
19. We are to obey Christ and follow Christ, not obey our relatives and follow them.
20. Webster s 1828 Dictionary says this: In Scripture, hate signifies to love less. If any man come to me, and hate not father and mother, etc. (Luke 14:26). He that spareth the rod, hateth his son (Proverbs 13:24).
21. H.A. Ironside in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke gave a good illustration of Luke 14:26. I remember a dear, young Jewish girl who came to the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved. When she was to be baptized her Jewish mother, who loved her tenderly, said in a paroxysm of anger, Oh, my daughter, do you hate your mother so much that you would go down to that church and be baptized? The daughter insisted that she loved her mother, but that she loved Christ more. Her mother said, You do not love me, or you would never be baptized. You hate me; that is why you are being baptized. The daughter knew that faithfulness demanded that she turn away from her dear mother as though she hated her, although it was almost more than she could endure. This illustrates what our Lord meant. Nothing must come between you and faithfulness to Christ; you must be true to Him whatever it means. So discipleship does cost. Many people have had to leave their homes for Christ s sake, and their names have been cast down as evil, because they loved Him supremely. Many of us belong to Christian families and have been brought up in homes where loved ones were interested in our salvation; nevertheless, the challenge comes to us just the same. If anyone, no matter how dear, would come between Christ and us we are to hate that person in comparison with our love for Him.

 

II. THERE IS A COST TO BE COUNTED (14:28-32).

1. It costs something to be a disciple. In verses 28-30, our Lord said a wise builder would not start to build a tower without first counting the cost.
2. Otherwise, he might run out of funds and not be able to finish the job. Passersby would then begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish (14:29, 30).
3. People often make hasty decisions. When we first started this church, I saw people come forward at the invitation and return to the auditorium before we finished singing the fourth stanza to Just As I Am.
4. No wonder most of these converts didn t stick around.
5. The Bible says one should count the cost. I believe this is the main reason there are so many shallow professions of faith in Christ.
6. Our Lord is warning here that He wants no impulsive response to the Gospel call. Being a disciple is a costly business. It calls for careful and serious deliberation.
7. In addition to the metaphor of preparing to build, there is the metaphor of preparing to battle (14:31-33).
8. The Christian life is a battle. Satan is our fierce adversary. In fact, the Hebrew word satan means "adversary.
9. First Peter 5:8 says, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
10. W.H. Griffith Thomas said, Whether building or battling, failure to face consequences causes spiritual disaster (Outline Studies in Luke).

 

III. THERE IS AN INFLUENCE TO BE EXERTED (14:34, 35).

1. In Matthew 5:13, our Lord said, Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Good for nothing.
2. Salt suggests the quality of the disciple. Many professing Christians need some salt. They are insipid. They are wishy-washy.
3. They are like the members of the church of Laodicea. Our Lord had to rebuke that lukewarm church I will spue thee out of my mouth (Revelation 3:16).
4. The word "salt" (14:34) is found 41 times in Scripture. In Biblical times, salt was very valuable. Part of a soldier's pay was given in salt. Our word "salary" comes from the word "salt," and that is where the old expression comes from, "He's not worth his salt!"
5. "Not worth one's salt" implies not worth the expense of the food he eats. Are you worth your salt?
6. Our Lord said if the salt has lost its savour, It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. (14:35).
7. "It is good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men" (Matthew 5:13).
8. Salt adds flavor. Job said, "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?" (Job 6:6).
9. Salt preserves. Salt also purifies. Salt is an antiseptic that prevents decay and makes things cleaner.
10. Salt helps our bodies digest food.
11. The lesson: Christians are to be like salt. If they are not like salt, they are good for nothing (Matthew 5:13).
12. Society today is rotten to the core. Target has recently announced that men are free to use the women s bathroom in their stores. Two years ago, they started promoting homosexual marriage, and even ran an advertisement featuring two homosexual fathers.
13. Society today is rotten to the core, and the corruption is getting worse each and every day. But the churches have become assimilated by the world, and therefore they have lost their power to stem the tide of wickedness that is overcoming this world.
14. They have no salt, and have become insipid. They are neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill (Luke 14:35).

 

CONCLUSION:

1. Three times our Lord says, He cannot be my disciple (14:26, 27, 33).
2. W.H. Griffith says one cannot be a disciple if there is no

• Surrender to Christ nothing must come before Christ (14:26).
• Suffering for Christ the cross is the emblem of suffering and shame (14:27).
• Substance for Christ all that we have belongs to Christ. We cannot hold anything back (14:33).
• He that hath ears to hear, let him hear (14:35b).