Casual vs Committed • Luke 14:25-35

1:07:59 Teaching begins

Notes

A crowd is following Jesus. He tells them, “You can’t follow Me. You’re not My disciples.”

The difference is following Jesus from far off, casually, off and on, or following Him in a committed relationship.

Following Jesus casually is nothing.

Committing to be Jesus’ disciple is everything.

I’m reading in Luke 14 from verse 25.

1. Crowds of people follow Jesus but He knows they’re not following Him.

A. You and I would think, if that many people are following me, I must be doing okay. I am influencing many people. This must be good.

B. Jesus turns around to these followers and shuts them out from following Him. He weeds them out. He shuts the door. You can’t follow Me unless you become My disciples.

C. The difference between following Jesus and being His disciple is committed relationship. This crowd has no relationship with Jesus.

D. If these people aren’t His disciples why are they following Him? We can answer that from other places in the gospel.

1. They want to get healed.

2. They want to see a miracle. Jesus might raise someone from the dead.

3. They want to hear Him teach. No man spoke like this Man.

4. Jesus might even feed the entire multitude.

5. It’s exciting to be around Jesus because you never know what’s going to happen. This is the most amazing thing anyone will ever see. It’s a spectacle.

D. Jesus is not interested in entertaining crowds. He is interested in disciples who learn all that He has to teach and stick personally with Him to learn His character. He wants a committed relationship with the purpose of making disciples like Him.

E. When Jesus explains about what a disciple is, He describes who He is.

2. If you want to follow Jesus He must be your ultimate authority.

A. He says, you can’t come to Me and be My disciple unless you hate your father and mother, wife, sister, brother, and your own life because these are all obstacles to obeying Jesus.

1. These are important relationships. You are to honour your father and your mother. You are to love, honour and cherish your wife, you are one flesh with her, no closer relationship in this life. No man ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it.

2. What about God? The first, greatest commandment is, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. We obey parents over God. We obey wives over God. God comes last. When it comes to obeying Jesus or obeying yourself, you will always choose yourself. That’s sin.

B. Jesus has perfect relationship with the Father who is His exclusive authority.

1. Jesus’ one goal is to glorify the Father. In John 2:17 His disciples remembered it was written of Him, “Zeal for Your house has consumed Me.”

2. He says John 14:31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.

3. He is absolutely committed to the Lord, to obey Him and give His life as a ransom for all.

4. Imagine if Jesus said, “Hey, that’s a lot to ask of a person,” we wouldn’t be saved. Thank God that Jesus obeyed the Father above His own life.

C. A disciple of Jesus commits to a like relationship with Him. Your relationship with Jesus is first, exclusive, non-negotiable.

1. Your parents may not agree with you. Your wife or your husband might not agree with you. Your family can put pressure to do what they want, not what Jesus wants. Are you going to tell Jesus, “I’m sorry, Lord, but my parents don’t want me to obey You.”?

2. If you obey anybody or yourself above Jesus you are not like Him. Jesus commands His disciple to obey Jesus above his own life.

3. You see why this has to be. If you don’t obey Jesus you have no more relationship with Him than the crowd. Luke 6:46 He said, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

3. If you want to follow Jesus you have to understand that you will suffer to the death.

A. He says, “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”

B. A cross is a means of putting someone to death.

1. A guy carrying his cross is walking to his death. He’s already as good as dead.

2. Crucifixion is a living death. You are nailed to a cross and you’re left there to die. Over a period of days you are dying of blood loss, asphyxiation, and thirst, in pain beyond our understanding.

3. When death comes, it’s a release, it’s a relief. You welcome it.

C. Jesus here describes Himself. He picked up His cross when He humbled Himself and became a human being like us. That’s when His living death began, that culminated in crucifixion and resurrection.

D. If you want to follow Jesus you have to know that you will suffer death.

1. You accept that. You are signing up for suffering.

2. You are following Jesus, obeying the Father to the death, and you submit your life to Him to suffer and die as He sees fit. Just like Jesus, you pray, “Not My will, but Yours be done.” You also say, “The cup that the Father gives Me, shall I not drink it?” John 18:11.

E. You suffer for doing what is right.

1. Jesus suffered at the hands of wicked men. He endured temptation as the devil tried to swerve Him away from doing the Father’s will to doing His own will.

2. You have to endure the same temptations, persecutions, and suffering for following Jesus.

E. You stay on that cross of your own free will.

1. You can get off it at any time. No one is making you do this.

2. Exactly the same as Jesus. John 10:17-18 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” The chief priests and scribes mocked Jesus and challenged Him to come down off the cross and then they would believe. He could have! Instead of proving Himself He kept obeying the Father, for our salvation.

F. You can lay your cross down and save your life here and now. All the opposition ceases, the attacks grow quiet, because now you’re not doing the Father’s will. You’re giving up obeying Jesus. The battle you experience confirms that you are a true disciple of Jesus.

4. Now you might be getting nervous. What if I can’t do this? Jesus says, you need to plan for setbacks and opposition.

A. You have to realise that as a disciple you will not always make progress. You might be stopped for a while.

B. When you build a tower you have to plan for unknown difficulties. You can expect the unexpected. You lose workers, lose materials, cost goes up, wars start, you have fires or earthquakes. These obstacles may not happen but if they do, you’re prepared rather than being surprised and you keep going rather than give up. You live in a fallen, dark world where there’s opposition to doing good. You will experience setbacks.

C. Jesus had setbacks. People wanted the healing but rejected Him. He taught the word of God and was rejected. He healed 10 lepers, only one turned back to thank Him. The Apostle Paul experienced setback after setback. Prison, riots, shipwreck, bandits, assassination attempts.

D. You have to know that what you’re getting into demands more than you have.

1. Sometimes you will be overwhelmed. You’re a king with 10,000 men, but here comes a king against you with 20,000 men. This is too much for you. You have to find another way to go forward. Negotiate, maybe you can make peace.

2. As a disciple of Jesus you will get overwhelmed with opposition. Paul said, 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us.

E. As a disciple of Jesus you follow Jesus by His resources not your own. He has the wisdom and the solutions when you are outnumbered and overwhelmed. He never gave up, you don’t ever give up.

5. If you want to follow Jesus you have to know in advance that you must lose all your possessions.

A. Just like relationships in this world, possessions compete for your obedience. Everything you own is either a tool that serves you, or an idol that you serve.

B. When you become Jesus’ disciple you lose your possessions to Him. He ransomed you from sin and death and bought you completely. Everything you own, He now owns. He is the Master, you are His steward over His possessions.

C. He will use His possessions any way He wants. It’s His decision. You can see an example of how generous Jesus is in 2 Corinthians 8:1-5. Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.

D. You have to know up front when you become Jesus’ disciple it’s no longer your decision how to use the things you own. You can’t put up a fuss. You are His steward.

6. Being a disciple isn’t something you do, it’s who you are, 24 hours a day for the rest of your life. Jesus says you’re like salt.

A. Salt is good.

1. It’s an ancient symbol of permanence. Salt doesn’t disintegrate. It remains itself.

2. Several times in the Old Testament you’ll read of a covenant of salt. That’s another way of saying eternal covenant. Sacrifices always had to be offered with salt, a token of the eternal covenant of God.

B. As a disciple of Jesus you become useful and effective for eternity. You preserve, you benefit. You’re forever.

C. But Jesus asks, what if a disciple stops being a disciple?

1. For salt to lose its flavour and stop being salty, it would have to stop being itself. It would become nothing. Think of fat-free Greek yogurt. They remove the fat and put something else in there to simulate fat. What is it? Either it’s fat or it’s nothing.

2. What would you season “non-salt” with? Adding salt to “non-salt” doesn’t make “non-salt” salty. If salt is not salt it’s nothing.

D. The question is really, how would you make a “not-disciple” useful? What can you accomplish apart from Jesus?

1. Anything you do would be in this world, it would be temporary.

2. When the earth and all its works are burned up nothing you do will survive. Great buildings, or great art, or music, or riches or whatever, will become nothing. Revelation 18 says of the destruction of Babylon: in one hour such great wealth is laid waste!

3. “Non-salt” affects neither land nor dunghill. A conquering army would sow salt in its enemy’s land to make it sterile. “Non-salt” wouldn’t affect anything. It wouldn’t hurt the land nor make a pile of dung worse or better.

E. Unlike the crowd, a disciple does things that last forever. Giving one’s life to follow Jesus and become like Him is reasonable, lasting, useful, valuable. It’s not a drag, it’s the only way to live!

7. So what?

A. Are you in the crowd following Jesus casually, or are you a disciple? Christian means being a disciple of Jesus. If you’re going to church for what you can get out of it, you’re not following Jesus, and ultimately you won’t get anything out of it. Getting benefits without getting Jesus is not worth it.

B. So why be Jesus’ disciple? You lose your family, you lose your life, you lose all your possessions, you’re going to suffer, you’re going to experience setbacks and opposition. Jesus doesn’t make it attractive. He excludes, He weeds out, He bars the door. You can’t do this.

C. Here’s why you want to commit.

1. One, you get eternal relationship with Jesus that nothing can destroy. Eternal relationship with Jesus is eternal life.

2. Two, though you suffer for doing right in a wicked world, you’re not alone. You enter the fellowship of His suffering. He promised, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Everything you experience, He conquered before you. When you are dying, it’s fabulous to know that you are not alone, He is with you.

3. Three, you are not destroyed when you have setbacks and opposition: 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Psalm 138:8 The Lord will accomplish what concerns me; Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting; do not forsake the works of Your hands.

D. Read this over. Are you casually following Jesus or are you committed? Do not follow Jesus from afar. Be His disciple.

Let’s pray.