Luke 14:25-35

Transcript

00:00:00:46 – 00:00:25:39
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us as we close out the week in the Gospel of Luke. Interesting passage today. We find ourselves in the end of the 14th chapter, verse 25 is where we’re starting in Luke. It’s it. We find ourselves comparing Luke to Matthew a lot. And for one of those reasons, one of the reasons for that is that those two books have the most similar stuff in them.

00:00:25:39 – 00:00:51:19
Clint Loveall
What’s interesting is that we’re in Matthew you tend to get more peripheral stuff. Jesus will say something, there’ll be some explanation or in Matthew you tend to get those sayings spread out. It’s kind of like Luke saves them and then just uses them shotgun style, kind of kind of puts them all together in one passage. And I think we have a really good example of that today.

00:00:51:19 – 00:01:11:38
Clint Loveall
Michael, I’m going to read this and there are lots of challenging things in it, so don’t worry, we will circle back and get it. But let me just read through. Large crowds were traveling with him and he turned and he said to them, whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brother and sisters.

00:01:11:38 – 00:01:48:25
Clint Loveall
Yes. Even life itself cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you intending to build a tower does not first sit down and estimate the cost to see whether he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he’s laid a foundation, he’s not able to finish and all who see it will ridicule him, saying This fellow began to build and was not able to finish or what King Going to wage war against another king will not sit down first and consider whether he is able, with 10,000 to oppose the one who comes against him with 20,000.

00:01:48:30 – 00:02:13:10
Clint Loveall
If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how can it saltiness be restored? And it is fit neither for the soil or for the manure pyre.

00:02:13:15 – 00:02:46:34
Clint Loveall
They throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear. Listen. So again, Michael, we don’t see anything here that we don’t also find in another gospel, primarily, Matthew, not exclusively. But what we do find is this condensed version of it. And it starts jarringly this word that Jesus begins with whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even life itself cannot be my disciple.

00:02:46:39 – 00:03:20:33
Clint Loveall
This is there is a similar verse in Matthew. It’s couched a little bit. Jesus’s family is trying to gain control over him, so to speak. But here we just have Jesus drop that out. And I do think this is kind of jarring. It may help that the theme of all of these these verses that are coming in this passage are the difficulty of discipleship and the absolute necessity to put one’s discipleship above all else.

00:03:20:38 – 00:03:24:33
Clint Loveall
But even so, this is troubling language.

00:03:24:37 – 00:03:51:11
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, obviously, Clint, we’ve got to own the fact that there are times when Jesus’s teachings make us uncomfortable, when they go beyond some of those classic, well-known texts. And, you know, this is certainly one of those situations. On one hand, a temptation when reading and studying the scriptures is to come to words like these and then to become overwhelmed, to maybe just kind of check out, keep reading on and think, wow, that was that was interesting.

00:03:51:16 – 00:04:13:36
Michael Gewecke
But if we’re willing to to take a moment here, we’re willing to read this in context. This is a really powerful both challenge. I mean, that’s obvious. But there is a even kind of encouragement in this because the challenge which comes to us quickly is what is the cost that you will be willing to pay for the sake of the gospel?

00:04:13:40 – 00:04:40:44
Michael Gewecke
What is the relational break edge that you’re willing to endure if it is necessary for you to be part of the Kingdom of God? And very clearly it’s explicit father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, even life itself. By the way, this isn’t philosophical, right? This isn’t Jesus talking to people with some kind of high minded rhetoric that there is an entire generation of Christians within.

00:04:40:44 – 00:05:09:25
Michael Gewecke
Remember the history of Jesus speaking these words who are counting the cost of mother, father, brothers, sisters, who are even giving their very life as martyrs to the hope that they’ve received in Jesus Christ. So when we hear these words from Jesus, you have to remember that the the real challenge of knowing that there is a cost for discipleship, which certainly in our context, I think that makes us very, very uncomfortable.

00:05:09:30 – 00:05:37:51
Michael Gewecke
We might forget that this is not an imaginary cost that is being imagined. It’s a real cost that many Christians and the very first generation of the church experienced. And so in that sense, there’s a deep encouragement in this that when you come to a moment where you feel a rift between your closest family and Jesus, that Jesus had already prophesied that that it would come, that that would be a reality.

00:05:38:02 – 00:06:09:12
Michael Gewecke
There’s a kind of comfort for those who are experiencing this. Jesus knows it’s coming. He gives this teaching as a word of encouragement for them. But that said, we shouldn’t let ourselves off of the hook because of that. There is real, there is wisdom in reading the Scripture from our own contextual lens and admitting both to ourselves and to others that that when we’ve not experienced these kinds of choices and there are people in the world who still do.

00:06:09:12 – 00:06:26:17
Michael Gewecke
But but if you’re listening to this and you’re an American and you’ve had a life of faith, it’s likely that unlikely that you have, then it’s worth being uncomfortable for a little bit. And considering the kind of cost that Jesus calls those who follow him to be willing to take on.

00:06:26:22 – 00:07:01:42
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think the church has overwhelmingly not taken this as general advice from Jesus. Even people who would tell you they read the Bible literally are not going to take this passage literally. This is not a call to animosity with one’s family, Right? It’s a call to priority of one’s discipleship over everything else, including family. And it does help, I think, as Michael’s pointed out, that it comes from a time where that was a real choice that some people had to make.

00:07:01:42 – 00:07:28:17
Clint Loveall
My faith or my family. And in the early church, this is evidence of the prioritization of faith. It gets no less challenging, but perhaps gets more comfortable in regard to language as we move on here. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. This is again, we’ve talked about this in the last few passages.

00:07:28:31 – 00:08:18:46
Clint Loveall
The Bible does does not at any point envision that discipleship is easy, that faith is easy, that it’s comfortable, that it’s a recipe for success. The Bible knows that being faithful is hard. And so Jesus says here, those who don’t carry the cross, they aren’t fit, they aren’t ready to be disciples. And then he gives these examples of when you would be in deep trouble for leaping before you look a king who doesn’t plan, a builder who doesn’t plan the the idea of not being careful in your decision making and the idea of rushing into the faith without considering how seriously that faith is going to make demands of your life and the extent to

00:08:18:46 – 00:08:26:01
Clint Loveall
which it might make demands of your life is held by Jesus in essentially the same light.

00:08:26:06 – 00:08:48:27
Michael Gewecke
You know, another parable that may be less challenging, but I think has the same teaching would be the parable of the soils. So the parable of the seeds where Jesus teaches this idea that you’ve got good soil, you’ve got rocky soil, you’ve got the path. And in that the people who are not good soil can be places where the word grows in them.

00:08:48:32 – 00:09:08:31
Michael Gewecke
But like the rocky soil that gets choked out, it doesn’t get enough nourishment and then it dies off. You have the same with thorns and thorny soil. And I think that what we have here with this analogy of counting the cost, I mean, that’s literally the language that we have here. I’ve just got to sit down and estimate the cost.

00:09:08:36 – 00:09:40:13
Michael Gewecke
The teaching is relatively simple. It’s do are you willing to go the whole way in discipleship because you’re a fool to start the journey if you’ve not counted the difficulty of going. It’s a this is tricky now, me putting in conversation with the soil because it’s also doing something differently. But but that kind of analogy to say that if you were the one to have that seed planted in you and it’s just going to be cut out, then what’s the point of the seed being planted there?

00:09:40:24 – 00:10:15:10
Michael Gewecke
That’s not good exegesis of that text. Oh, I make that clear. But just to make clear that there’s a choice element in this, there’s a kind of seeing it through to the end aspect to this. And I think we should be open to seeing how that challenges us For today’s Walk of Faith. This isn’t really uncomfortable because of the the kind of difficulty to understand it as a lesson is difficult because of the implication for what we do today, that there may be things that the faith asks us to not do that will be hard, or that there may be things today.

00:10:15:19 – 00:10:35:15
Michael Gewecke
There likely are things today the faith would ask of us that we are quite frankly unwilling to do or don’t want to do. And those are the places where Jesus is going to challenge us. Don’t be like those who have entered into this kingdom who, without giving it thought, take it seriously and it will be demand that you will ask something of you.

00:10:35:20 – 00:11:03:36
Clint Loveall
I think that’s particularly evident in our next verse. You know, we begin this passage with a troubling verse Hate your family, that the idea of a choice that has to be made that’s problematic, that the last verse is crystal clear. There’s no difficulty of interpretation. There’s just wrestling with what we do with it. And as we go through, might as we go through Luke again.

00:11:03:36 – 00:11:40:14
Clint Loveall
Michael And I’m developing a theory that when most people think of the Gospel, they think outside of Luke and now there are some beautiful parts. Salute. Next week will be in maybe one of the most beloved chapters of Luke three beautiful parables that are related, one of the best crafted chapters in the Gospel. But here we get Jesus saying this very clear thing None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

00:11:40:19 – 00:11:46:12
Clint Loveall
Nowhere in the history of the faith has the bulk of the church read that literally.

00:11:46:12 – 00:11:46:54
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, right.

00:11:46:58 – 00:12:13:25
Clint Loveall
We we read that through the lens of some people might be called to that the rich young ruler we temperate with some stuff out of other gospels. This is a crystal clear statement that we don’t entirely know what to do with right now. We could argue that rather than be literal, this points us to a spirit of generosity and holding our possessions loosely.

00:12:13:30 – 00:12:32:08
Clint Loveall
And we could argue about it means what giving up means, whether that means I have a lot of stuff, but I’m willing to give it up. Is that fit? But the point if we get if we don’t get bogged down in that, I think what we here of the point is again, the same thing. Jesus has been saying.

00:12:32:13 – 00:12:58:15
Clint Loveall
Is there anything in our life higher on our priority list than the gospel, than our discipleship? And if it is, if we’re not ready, you can’t be disciples. If the one you’re trying to be a disciple of isn’t your highest priority, it you can’t really do it. The Gospel does not share top billing with our interests and our hobbies and our wealth and our possessions.

00:12:58:15 – 00:13:04:18
Clint Loveall
And this is a harsh section, but Jesus is making that really, really clear for us.

00:13:04:22 – 00:13:42:04
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. Isn’t there that saying, you know, you’ll ask people, you know, what are the most important things to you? And people say, you know, God, family work or God family money or however that goes. I think in that kind of continuum, we’ve got to be very, very careful, all because in the telling of Luke’s gospel, the people who should have recognized God didn’t the Pharisees and teachers of the law, the people who were asked to give up everything, resisted it, and the people who came to the moment of choosing Jesus or their family wanted to choose their family over Jesus.

00:13:42:09 – 00:14:12:32
Michael Gewecke
That kind of very simplistic idea. Well, I just order my relationships this way. I think Luke actually goes out of Luke’s way. That trouble that I think Luke makes it clear when we encounter Jesus, we inevitably encounter someone who asks more of us than what we were prepared to give. And that is going to be unsettling. I mean, that is by definition us coming into the presence of a Holy Creator God, something entirely other than us.

00:14:12:32 – 00:14:33:15
Michael Gewecke
And when we come into the presence of that, we will be moved by I mean, it will be challenging. And here Luke makes it clear in Jesus’s encounter and in his teachings that others experience that, that they sense the presence of of a being and a God who has more of them than what they were comfortable giving at first.

00:14:33:19 – 00:14:59:29
Clint Loveall
Jesus in all of the gospels is demanding. But in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is particularly demanding of our possessions and our priorities. And I think this is a section that kind of highlights that as we move to this final verse here, we see again a restatement in Matthew. This is part of Jesus Sermon on the Mount. There’s a little bit expanded version of it here.

00:14:59:29 – 00:15:37:09
Clint Loveall
Jesus just says sold is good, but if it loses its taste, it’s useless. It’s not fit for being used. Excuse me. So let anyone with ears listen. So I mean, what’s the takeaway here? That if our faith doesn’t change us, if our faith doesn’t lead us, guide us, if our faith doesn’t make us reevaluate priorities and reconsider what is most important to us, then it’s it is not fit, it is not good, it is not salty.

00:15:37:13 – 00:16:05:49
Clint Loveall
And Luke, this is a very interesting transition verse between what he has. Jesus has been teaching and these beloved parables that he’s going to tell that that faith without the marks of faithfulness, without the commitment to make it our top priority, is really something else. It’s a watered down version that doesn’t do much good for us or others.

00:16:05:49 – 00:16:08:54
Clint Loveall
And I think you know, there’s a tremendous challenge in that.

00:16:08:54 – 00:16:39:27
Michael Gewecke
Michael Some of us miss the meaning of this text because for for us in our time, salt is a relatively easy to acquire, an inexpensive good. But in the ancient world, salt was incredibly expensive and it was incredibly highly sought after for both its ability to preserve but also its ability to, you know, certainly flavor. And here, when Jesus uses it in the midst of a spiritual teaching, he’s not talking about a small thing.

00:16:39:41 – 00:17:17:38
Michael Gewecke
The idea of salt that has lost its tastiness, its saltiness is is by definition a horrible thing. It would be like you going and purchasing something you really like that was expensive. And when you got it, it was a watered down, worthless version of the thing that you had saved up for. And so the idea here that Christians or that people of faith would have the good news, that they would be called to a life of discipleship that would be, by definition possible to transform them into new people, to give them a deeper and more vibrant life.

00:17:17:38 – 00:17:44:18
Michael Gewecke
The idea that that has been on offer for you and then what you get in the end is a wishy washy sort of not very well defined sort of thing. In the end is by definition tragic that that’s a biblical tragedy and I think that for Jesus’s teaching here, I actually think that this is one of the most challenging components of this text.

00:17:44:18 – 00:18:10:15
Michael Gewecke
If I’m going to be honest, because as Christians, we often do search for those things that make us distinctive, and we often define those things in opposition to people that we disagree with, whether that’s politically or morally. But here, Jesus, I think, is calling Christians to live in such a way that they add to the world. In other words, that saltiness does this positive thing.

00:18:10:15 – 00:18:32:49
Michael Gewecke
And if we and our faith doesn’t result in positive good being constructed in the world around us, both our immediate circles and those beyond them, then we have failed. We failed the gospel, we failed the salt giver. And I, I find words like this incredibly challenging because they remind me that my call isn’t to be right. My call isn’t to be unique.

00:18:32:49 – 00:18:42:25
Michael Gewecke
My calls to contribute something positive because of the faith that has been given to me by Jesus Christ. And and that’s a challenging thing to be sent back into the world with.

00:18:42:30 – 00:18:56:07
Clint Loveall
I might even say, challenges us to make sure that faith is our highest priority, not just to do good things, but to do good things. Because above all else.

00:18:56:07 – 00:18:56:27
Michael Gewecke
Right.

00:18:56:42 – 00:19:24:06
Clint Loveall
We value and treasure our discipleship and and seek to follow Christ faithfully. I’ll make this quick, Michael. But one other little side trip here, this verse that our chemistry friends will tell us, you know, salt doesn’t lose its salt in the salt is always salt. And that’s an adventure. In missing the point, there have been times the church has tried to defend these words as if you were in chemistry class.

00:19:24:10 – 00:19:48:54
Clint Loveall
And Jesus point is far, far simpler than that. He’s not talking about salt, he’s talking about people. And when we lose our faithfulness, when we let other things climb higher on our priority list than being faithful to Jesus Christ, then we’re losing our saltiness and we’re ready for some other purpose because we’re not fulfilling the purpose that we have.

00:19:48:54 – 00:20:08:15
Clint Loveall
We’ve lost our purpose in being called to be the people of Christ. And so don’t don’t get distracted here by some of the the the things that people do with these texts. Keep keep your focus on what it means. And really, it’s pretty clear. I mean, this is a hard text to get around.

00:20:08:20 – 00:20:26:22
Michael Gewecke
And Jesus says at the very end, let anyone with ears to hear. Listen. And I think in that is a nod to the fact that there are many who don’t have years to hear. And I would argue there are many who don’t have stomachs to take this this teaching. And all of us have been there at some point in our life.

00:20:26:27 – 00:20:50:20
Michael Gewecke
The reality is what Jesus calls us to is by definite and beyond what we’re capable of doing unto our own strength. And that is a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith, is that we rely upon the grace of the spirit in enabling and empowering us to do the thing that we couldn’t have done for ourself. So if this feels out of reach, then I think you felt the right thing.

00:20:50:33 – 00:21:06:07
Michael Gewecke
But the motivation and then should be to gratitude for the Spirit of God who is able to do with you more than what you could ask or imagine. And that’s that’s the gift of a text like this. It challenges us to our core. And at our core we find the grace of Jesus Christ waiting for us.

00:21:06:21 – 00:21:13:03
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think one of the. I think that’s a great word, Michael, the gift of this text is it’s very hard to point at other people.

00:21:13:03 – 00:21:13:52
Michael Gewecke
Yeah.

00:21:13:57 – 00:21:16:14
Clint Loveall
This is one that hits home.

00:21:16:19 – 00:21:31:21
Michael Gewecke
We certainly hope that it has for you. We are privileged that you’ve made it this far into the study that that is a gift to us. It means that you found this helpful If you would leave a light that helps other people find this video in their own study of Luke in the future. Certainly give us a comment.

00:21:31:21 – 00:21:40:35
Michael Gewecke
Let us know that you’re here. Give us any questions or thoughts you might have, and we would love to continue this study with you. As we return next Monday, 2:00 Central.

00:21:40:48 – 00:21:41:49
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.

00:21:41:54 – 00:21:42:12
Michael Gewecke
Be Blessed.