Luke 14:25-35

Attaining Heaven by meeting the requirements of a true disciple. 25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish.' 31 "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won't he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. 34 "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out."Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear." Is anything we should think about as we look at this passage in Luke? I am not sure what it is that you think about as you read this passage, but Jesus is teaching us the way of being a disciple. There are many areas of study today including the study of discipleship. It is not the study of discipleship that is important. Jesus has made it very simple for us. And if you only follow the way that he has set before us your training to be a disciple can be very easy. The issue is the decision. There is a large crowd following Jesus. The path that Jesus is going they are following. But Jesus turns to them and tells them: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. This is the key to His message. Who are we to love more than father, mother, wife, child, brothers and sisters and even their own life? Jesus is telling them that the requirement to be his disciple is that you must love him more than anyone else. We study the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and know that these are all things that have been and will come to pass. We know that Jesus has done all things. But all that we know, although we have studied from Genesis to Revelation, means nothing if we love our parents, our wives, our husbands, our children and ourselves more than we love Jesus. If I know nothing of the Bible, if I know nothing about the creation or Abraham or anything in any other books but I am assured of one thing, my love for Jesus and my willingness to lay down my life for Him, then I can be His disciple. If we spend much time studying the word of God but have no application of it in our lives then it means nothing. It is possible to love Jesus more than our parents. Why? It is easy to be unhappy with our parents. Is that not so? When are parents upset us we can confess that we love Jesus more than our parents. Even though we are head over heels for our wives are we completely satisfied with them? There are times when we are not. At those times we can easily desire to be rid of them. Many of today's youth leave their parents and elope. Do those marriages last long? Soon after, they start fighting and get divorced. It is easy to be done with them. It is easy to let go of your children and our wives and confess that we love Jesus more. We can even let go of our siblings. But the one thing we can't let go of his our pride. We refuse to let go of our stubbornness. Then can you say that you are living the life of a disciple of Jesus? Is it not difficult to throw away our pride? How difficult it is to rid ourselves of our stubbornness. When we get angry that is our stubbornness. Anger and raising our voices are all signs of our stubbornness. This all has to do with our pride. We get angry and raise our voices because our pride has been affected. We blame our wives and our children for hurting our pride and therefore we get angry. We have a hard time throwing our pride away. Our lives are even more valuable than our pride. Jesus tells us that we must be willing to give up our own lives to be his disciple. But how can we be his disciple when we refuse to give up our pride which is of less value than our lives? Can we really say that we are in training to be his disciples? That disciple is a false disciple. Just like Judas Iscariot he is one who is capable of betraying Jesus for his own good. Are we living our lives like this? What kind of life? For 30 shekels of silver we are betraying Jesus with our very lives. Are we truly His disciple? Let us examine ourselves according to the Word. Look at your life this past week. Did you die for Jesus this week? Did you abandon everything to follow Jesus? If you were unable to live a life of sacrifice this week for Jesus, then let us take a closer look at what the word is saying. Did I live my life as a disciple of Jesus? Those who do not hate their own lives cannot be his disciple. Then Jesus further says: And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. The second requirement is to carry the cross in order to be His disciple. In order to fulfill a contract all requirements must be satisfied. When you are trying to sell a house and the offer has come, who's offer will you accept? Does the owner not accept the offer that satisfies him most? Even if there are hundreds of offers if it does not satisfy the owner he does not accept. Though you may decide what you want to offer, the deal is not complete unless it is accepted by the other party. What do you do when there are things that you must have? Do you not make more of a sacrifice to attain them? When real estate was booming people not only gave the full offer but they offered additional money to purchase the real estate. Likewise when Jesus lays out the requirements to be his disciple, who will He accept as His disciples? Let us use our True Light church members as an example. It would be great if all of us were his disciples, but what if Jesus came and only chose 12? Who will He choose? Who will He choose? In your places of business who gets chosen to be an employee? They are the ones who are qualified. The ones who satisfy the employer. This is basic. We all know this. God is accepting us as His adopted children. Who will He accept as His children? Is it the one who causes the most trouble? Will He accept these children? Let us say that now that you are getting older and have more financial freedom and you decide to adopt a child. As Christians it would be great to raise a child to save them from poverty or sickness or any suffering and give them an opportunity to live a life that is free from burden. As we begin to get older and we have less energy to look after these children, if you were to choose a child who did not need much constant attention would you not choose a child that was best suited to you? This is a basic standard for all. Is this not so? Is God not the same? With God accept those as disciples who do whatever they want and rebel against him? When there are no specific requirements laid out for us then we can make an offer of our own and try to satisfy Him. But the requirements have been laid out. If I decide to sell my house for half a million dollars in cash, then these are my requirements. Likewise when Jesus says if you want to follow me you must love me more than your parents, more than your siblings, even more than yourself. You must love me more. Then you can be my disciple. In addition He says you must carry the cross and follow Him in order to be His disciple. These are requirements. When we say we believe in Jesus are we satisfying his requirements? Are you? Rather than satisfy his requirements we tell Him what we have done for Him. Do we not come before him saying we have done such and such for Him and now we ask Him to bless us in return? Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? He is telling us to consider the cost. He uses the example of going to war and if you are not going to win the war then to go and make peace. Let us use these examples and apply them to our lives. Jesus is telling us that if we don't have the decisiveness to love him more than our parents, children and ourselves then He is telling us to abandon being his disciple. Is He not telling us to abandon the path of discipleship? This is what He is saying. He is saying if you want to be My disciple meet My requirements. If you do not meet My requirements then in the end I will disown you and you will have lived a useless life. As pastor Lee always tells us you will have neither enjoyed this life nor attained heaven. Do not live your life pretending to be a Christian. Our Lord is telling us to not live to satisfy yourself and your requirements. We are told that when people start building and cannot finish because they do not have enough funds they will be ridiculed by others. We are told to not start a war that we will not be able to win and then up having to pay more costs through our losses and suffering. Just as we are shown in today's Scripture, if I am unable to finish what I start both in this world and in my pursuit of discipleship then I will be ridiculed. People will ridicule you and question "is that what a Christian is supposed to do, to do whatever they want?" If you live your life the same as those who live in the world and the only difference is that you come to church on Sunday, who would want to follow that Jesus that you supposedly serve? Not only will you be ridiculed but people will also ridicule Jesus. We are told to not live this kind of life. In Matthew chapter 13:44-46 Jesus gives the parable of the kingdom of Heaven as a treasure in the field and also as a fine pearl. What was the point of these parables? What did the person do when he found the treasure and he found the pearl? He sold all he had to purchase the field and the pearl. To sell all one has is to love Jesus more than their spouses, their wives, their children and even themselves. To sell all one has to buy the field and to buy the pearl is the same. Just as the field and the pearl is precious enough to sell everything for it, my love for Jesus is greater than my love for anyone else. If the pearl something that we must obtain, if Jesus is the one we choose to follow, if heaven is our goal, then I must sell all that I have to meet the requirements of Jesus. I must sell all I have to purchase Jesus. If we are not meeting His requirements we must examine ourselves. In darkness even the faintest light can be seen. Even the smallest grain of salt when we taste it is salty. Jesus says: Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? Has anyone ever seen salt that has lost its saltiness? No matter how old salt is or what has been done to it unless it is put into water and dissolved it remains salty. Then why does Jesus use this example of salt? Jesus always spoke in parables and examples. Who is he comparing the salt to? He is comparing salt to those who believe in Jesus. The salt does not lose it saltiness but people can change. I can be a follower of Jesus who loses the flavor of salt and end up being a false disciple. Then other believers and even our Lord will throw me out and I will be trampled on. I will be trampled upon because I was unable to be the salt that I am supposed to be. Are you living your life of faith thinking about such things? We speak of salt and use salt in many of our examples. We know about salt and how we are to be like salt. But we never think about the salt that loses its saltiness, the follower who is unable to maintain their salt who was thrown out and trampled upon. Should we not think about these things as we live our lives of faith? We can see in Scripture that we must abandon our desire to satisfy ourselves, our flesh when we choose to follow Jesus, but are we not following Jesus in order to attain the things that we desire? We say that we have done enough for Him. When you have children do you love the ones who are rebellious who do whatever they want? Do you love them forever? Can you still love them? When our children do not do their homework and notices are sent home to the parents, Do parents not get angry? Is this not so? Parents get upset because the children are embarrassing them. We say we are children of God but do we go out into the world being the light we are called to be, and complete our homework? Are we being the salt and the light? Is the scent of Jesus coming off of us? No. And the people of the world are ridiculing us, giving us bad grades, but yet we tell God we love him and ask Him to bless us so that we can use those blessings for Him. This is how we desire to live our lives of faith. Then the God of love, will He always love us and forgive us and bless us when we behave this way? If so, then Jesus would not have to tell us the requirements. But it is not so. If the requirement is that I must hate myself in order to be His disciple, then we must calculate the cost and start over. We think we have no possessions if we have nothing in our bank accounts. Many people think possessions are houses and material things. Possessions are not about the number of children. Money, status and merit are all things that are fading away. But the thing that we hold onto the most is our will, our pride. This is our biggest stumbling block when we approach God. There are times in our lives when we look at ourselves and we are disappointed with ourselves. Though no one may say anything to us we are disappointed. When do we do this? It is because of our own pride that we do this to ourselves. No matter what the world says no matter what other people are doing if I keep my eyes on Jesus I can continue to go forward, but there are many times when we fail to do this. To truly follow Jesus I must be dead to myself I must let go of everything. The inability to do so means that there is something still within me something between myself and God. Abraham received a son at 100 years old. And then years later when he was much older and could no longer think of having another son, God asked him to sacrifice his son. Why was Abraham able to make the decision to go and offer his son as a sacrifice? How was he able to make the decision? It is because he had met God and to him God was most precious. Having met God he loved God more than his son Isaac. So when God asked him to sacrifice his son he was able to decide to do it. Likewise if I am able to meet God, the One who sent his son Jesus for me, then I too will be able to make this decision to lay down everything and to follow him. Although I have the knowledge of God my inability to move that knowledge into action means I have yet to be satisfied in Him. In the book of Judges 11 we are introduced to Jephthah who was a mighty warrior. He is the son of Gilead and a prostitute. So he was driven from their land. But when the Israelites went to war with the Ammonites they ask Jephthah to be their leader. What was his vow to God when he asked for victory? He offered to give as a sacrifice whatever came out his door when he returned home. Who came out of his door? It was his one and only daughter. What was his reply? He replied that his daughter had made him sad but because of his vow he had made to God he offered his daughter as a sacrifice. What about King Saul? He made a vow before God and men. And when the people said no to the sacrifice he did not sacrifice his son, because he cherished his son. He could not sacrifice his son because his son was more precious to him than God. When you make a vow to God, though you may feel like you are losing, in heaven you will be gaining great reward. And Acts chapter 5 we are told the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They have been blessed with the spirit. But after selling their possessions they hid some for themselves. They lost their lives because of this. What if they did not sell their possessions? Like Peter said before they sold it was theirs even after they sold it it belonged to them, but they have been deceived by the devil and lied to God. When we face many problems we made vows to God, and the moment those problems are resolved we walk away from our vows. We forget about the promises we make to him. We do not forget our promises because we have accidentally forgotten our promises. It is because we desire to forget them that we purposely walk away from them. Do I realize that I am being like Ananias and Sapphira and living in a lie? Because I do not realize this I do not realize that I am losing my life. All these things deal with the life around me. When I pray to God that I am going to offer him everything but I do not follow through, then I am like a fool who is tossing away his life. How should we be living our lives? The decision must be made by you. Yesterday as we watched the show each of us saw something, learned something, and have forgotten things. When you are fighting a spiritual battle and you get lost in the things of this world then you have already lost that battle. That is why when we gather for worship it is difficult for many of us to worship but many of us do not realize this. We know how much those individuals trained and sacrificed in order for us to be entertained by them. But did they make mistakes or were they perfect? They made mistakes. Can we ask for a refund because they made mistakes? We don't focus on the mistakes but we enjoy the show as a whole. But there is a difference between the entertainers and those athletes who compete in the Olympics. What happens when athletes make mistakes in a competition? There is no reward. Is that not so? Some athletes when they fail in an Olympic game that is the end of their career. We see judges make bad decisions and the outcomes change dramatically. In these events one call can change the outcome forever but in a show when they make mistakes the entertainers get up and keep the show going. Our lives should have both the importance of the games and also the ability as entertainers when we make mistakes to get up and to keep going. I must try my best to use this one opportunity to not lose that which I seek to stay focused and use all my strength. But what happens if in my pursuit I make a mistake? Do I sit down and give up? No, then I will be disqualified. I must get up and keep going. Just as the entertainers when they make a mistake get up and keep the show going on. In your life there will be times when you make mistakes. But when you make a mistake you don't give up and sit down you get up you repent and you keep going forward. When you get up and keep moving forward as an individual then together as a team we can keep moving forward together. Our True Light church is a team. Your family is a team. Your business Is a team. When you make a mistake you must get up. Rather than making mistakes and trying to get up, victory comes to those who try not to make a mistake by being alert a focused. The one who is awake is the one who can walk the path and be the disciple of Jesus. Warren Buffett was asked by a college student what is true success? True success is not making a lot of money or reaching high status. True success is being loved by the ones who are close to you. It is being with your family. A family can be 2, 3, or more. It can include your extended relatives and even this church. To be successful means that you are loved by those around you. As a pastor if I am not loved by you then I have failed. In my family if I am not loved by my wife my children, then as the head of this house I have failed. If in my business I am not acknowledged by those around me then I cannot succeed. To be loved by those were close to you does not only mean your children, your wife, or your husband. It is anyone who is associated with you. I must go to these places and be able to be loved by them. But as followers of Christ who's love should we truly seek? It is our Lord's love. If I am not able to receive His love how then can I say I am being successful? No matter how difficult my circumstance if I do not desire to follow the Lord with all my heart how then will I be able to tell people that I am living a life of victory in Christ? We have talked about Abraham and Jephthah but there is one who is even more outstanding. He is Job. Abraham was told to make a sacrifice and he was stopped from making the sacrifice. Jephthah sacrificed one daughter. Job lost all 10 of his children. Was that all? He lost all his possessions. Was that all? He also lost his health? Was that all? His wife told him to curse God and die. His wife had turned on him. He lost everything in this world but he never renounced God. This is true victory in God. Jesus laid out these requirements so that we too may be victorious in this life. The Bible is showing us that Job lived the life that met these requirements. In order for us to live this life I must lay down my life to the degree in which I know that Jesus loves me. In order to know this love I humble myself. I die to myself. In order to receive this love I repent daily and fill myself with his love. The degree to which I am filled with his love is the degree in which I am able to love Him. I searched to see if there was such a thing as salt that has lost its flavor. I came across one article that said "salt that had lost its flavor." It was lyrics to a song. It went like this: I watched a TV drama a little bit too long and missed worship. I left worship early to go watch a sporting event. Next week there is an important event So please Lord do not come yet. When the deacon prays I take a nap When the pastor speaks I judge his words But I must receive the benediction And the moment I say amen I must leave quickly. I make Jesus into the person that I desire to serve And I choose the scripture which I like and interpret it to mean what I desire Since I have made Jesus into something I desire Jesus is no longer on the cross When the choir sings I judge them I search my pockets for the tithe I did not bring When it's time to eat I am busy looking at others When I smoke and drink I play ignorant I complain because the pastor doesn't know me When there is someone I dislike I find another church But I try to get my offering Because through my offering I will be blessed I have made Jesus into the one I desire to serve And I choose the scripture which I like and interpret it to mean what I desire This is salt that has lost its saltiness. If my life has strayed from the path written in Scripture then I am salt that has lost its saltiness. It is not the seasoning salt that loses its saltiness. What happens to the one who loses his saltiness? Our Lord tells us that you will be thrown out and trampled upon. That means you are going to hell. You are not going to Heaven. I must choose to live a life that does not lose its saltiness. When I choose to live this life will it not be the life as a disciple of Jesus? You must live this life so that you can confess that you had lived a blessed life of a Christian. May you live this life and give glory to God as a disciple of our Lord. Sermon by Pastor Howard Park Translation by Miguel Park