We've been studying the Gospel of Luke and the the main focus
as we've gone chapter by chapter is to look at some of the most
difficult and challenging sayings of Jesus along the way.
And as we are now a few weeks into this, I will say that has
been a task that seems to get harder and harder week by week.
We've often started our studies in this series with a question
to really get our hearts ready for what we're about to be
challenged with. And so let me offer that same
challenging question to you this morning.
And it's going to be almost the exact opposite question, cutting
against the the grain of our culture.
Yesterday you were asked the question, who do you really
love? It was Valentine's Day and if
for those of you who celebrate or have a a significant other to
to show devotion to, I'm sure that you took some time to to
answer that question in a very specific way.
I I love you. You're the object of my
affection. Today I want to ask the opposite
question. I want to ask you today, who in
your life do you really hate? That an interesting that the,
the church is always cutting against the grain.
As I thought back to the way I would answer that question, I, I
think of actually Valentine's Day from my childhood when I was
in 4th grade. I have a memory of, of the
excitement I had for Valentine's Day in my class.
She had to take every person's name from the class and just
give each kid a Valentine. Just keep it all fair.
And then you got Valentine's from everybody else.
And as I went down the list and I just wrote Happy Valentine's
Day from Tucker, I got to one name that just stopped me in my
tracks. Her name was Kathleen.
And I just, I could not say Happy Valentine's Day.
Earlier in the school year, our teacher gave us a voluntary
assignment to submit an essay of what we'd done in the previous
summer. And she would gather all the
ones that she got, and she was going to have the her favorite
essay read in front of the class.
And so I thought about submitting one, but I didn't.
And then she announced the winner.
It was Kathleen. And as the essay began to be
read, I realized that Kathleen actually submitted my essay.
She was describing a vacation that she had just taken to the
Oregon coast with her grandparents.
And line by line, I just thought, that is my essay.
And inside of me, the seed of hate was planted.
I, I watched her receive the praise and accolades that were
due to me and I held on to that until my moment to get back at
her, which turned out to be Valentine's Day.
So when it came to you know her name on the list, I simply
wrote, I hate you. It's my answer.
That's who I that's who I that's who I hated.
Unfortunately, the story doesn't stop there because on the
morning of Valentine's Day, I woke up with a fever and I
couldn't go to school. So I sent my mom on a mission to
go pass out my cards and bring home the candy.
And I got back to school after a couple days and my teacher was
waiting to talk to me. And she said to me, I got your
note. And I said, I don't remember
writing you a Valentine's card. And she pulled out the note that
I had meant for my mom to give to Kathleen.
And instead my mom delivered it to my teacher.
And I could do nothing but cry and weep for mercy before her.
And I sat in detention for a number of recesses now just
realizing I really did hate Kathleen.
There's no question now. This is a woman that I hate.
And as you can see, 30 years later, I'm still thinking about
it. Now, if you're at all familiar
with the teachings of Jesus, if you have heard Christianity one
O 1, you might have guessed that that whole story was shared
because we're about to look at a challenging teaching of Jesus
that requires us to love our enemies.
And if you were like me when when thinking about who I hated
in my heart, you may have thought of someone that had done
you wrong. You may have thought of someone
that at best annoyed you or at worst did something to ruin your
life. And now they have gone from the
category of schoolmate or friend or roommate or family member to
the enemy. And you wouldn't be wrong to to
get your heart ready to receive a sermon to tell you that Jesus
in his way it is, is not going to let you live in that hatred.
He would. He's going to help you remove
bitterness and help you move on with your life by telling you to
forgive that person. There's lots of good sermons for
that. But we're looking at the
forgotten, the hard, the the often neglected teachings of
Jesus. And we look at that story this
morning and I challenge you with people in your mind because
today Jesus is not going to reverse the way that we feel
about people we naturally hate. He's actually going to do the
opposite. He's actually going to give us a
lesson to reverse the feeling about the people we naturally
love. This is radically different than
what you expect from Jesus today.
We're not listening to Jesus tell us that we must love the
people we naturally hate. He's going to tell us, and you
got to hold on. Do not tune out after I say
this. He's going to tell us that we
must hate the people we naturally love.
And I want to promise you that if we can hold on and we can and
try to understand Jesus, what are you getting at with this
really hard saying at the end of us, like at the end of this
lesson, like all lessons of Jesus, he is unlocking for us
life and life abundant. This is a forgotten lesson, but
it is a critical lesson to understand how to actually
unlock the abundant life that Jesus is giving you the way
towards. So bear with me as as we go
through this, because we are going to, as we've set out to,
to look at the hard teachings of Jesus, we are going to look at
one of the hardest teachings of Jesus to, to help us understand
how we could take people we naturally love and begin to put
them in their proper place. And he actually uses the word
hatred. By the end of this sermon, we
are actually going to see a vision for all of this where
Jesus is going to give us a beautiful reward and a promise.
And it will happen if you can learn the ways of Jesus to live
how you naturally wouldn't so that you can have the promises
that you naturally wouldn't experience.
But to get there, we have to start with another very
difficult teaching of Jesus, starting in verse 25, Luke
chapter 14, verse 25. Now great multitudes went with
him. Remember, we're we're journeying
to Jerusalem with Jesus and the crowds are following him until
ultimately it'll be get so narrow and so difficult and so
challenging and so scary that only Jesus will get there.
But at this point in the story, it says great multitudes are
with him. And as he sees the multitudes,
imagine the scene, he, he's traveling to Jerusalem to get to
the cross and he turns and he says to them, if anyone comes to
me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters, yes, his own life also, he cannot be my
disciple. And whoever does not bear his
cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
He's not saying this is going to be challenging, but we'll get
you there. He's telling you this is the
moment where some of you are going to be disqualified.
Then he tells a story for which of you intending to build a
tower, does not sit down 1st and count the cost whether he has
enough to finish it, lest he has laid the foundation, is not able
to finish, and all those who see it begin to mock him, saying
this man began to build and was not able to finish.
Or what king going to make war against another king does not
sit down 1st and consider whether he is able with 10,000
to meet with him who comes against him with 20,000 or else
the other, still a great way off, sends a delegation and asks
for the conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever does not
forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.
We'll stop there if you can get to where he's taking us.
He actually gives us a great vision by the end, but to get to
the vision, he's getting the call to be so narrow that he is
letting some people know you can't do it.
You, you will not be my disciple.
So before we get to the the challenging saying, talking
about hating the people you love, I want to point out once
again, and this is something that has come out throughout our
series as we walk towards the cross with Jesus once again, the
Gospel of Luke, the writer is telling us that there were great
crowds that preceded the teaching.
This is not a lost detail. This is one of the things that
the the writer is letting us know that he's Jesus is noticing
that then turns into a teaching and wherever he gets the chance,
wherever there's great crowds gathering, he always seems to
bring the hardest teachings. I belabor it throughout our
series because Jesus does not seem impressed with the
multitude. It does not appear as though
what Jesus is really after are are big crowds of people who are
interested in like him and are willing to listen to Him teach.
He is time and time again giving people an opportunity to off
ramp on the road to the cross if they do not actually have what
it takes to follow him. No one will accuse Jesus of
saving the fine print for the end.
He says at the very beginning to follow me is going to cost you.
Consider the cost. And today we look at two costs
that must be paid that if they are not met, if you don't get
this part right, he says you are not part of my discipleship.
And now we come to verse 26 with that in mind as Jesus aims once
again to thin out the crowd. You would be considered a
multitude and yet it doesn't matter unless you get this part
right. Verse 26 and and if anyone comes
to me and does not hate his father and his mother and he
goes into the very he cuts against every close relationship
that you can think of in the family dynamic, brother, sister,
spouse. So what is Jesus doing?
Is he telling us that the simple truth is that you need to start
hating your family members? Of course not.
In in a great multitude there were probably some that brought
their family members as an act of love to hear the words of
Jesus. Jesus, same teacher, same Good
Shepherd that said we are to love our enemies as stated
earlier, and he is not contradicting himself and he is
not changing the message. What he is doing is helping
people understand that what they're naturally after is going
to be different than what he calls them to.
And that is why earlier in this very same chapter, I invite you
to read it when we get out later today, Luke chapter 14.
This is not the first time that he is going to challenge the way
that you normally live your life in your relationships.
He says in verse 12, and also he said to them, when you give a
dinner, don't ask your friends or your brothers or your
relatives or your neighbors, lest they also invite you and
pay you back. Instead, fight the people who
have nothing and can never return the favor.
Now what Jesus isn't saying is you're not allowed to eat with
your close friends or your family members.
What he is saying is I want you to think about life differently
and I'm going to say something so extreme that you can't miss
the main point. Anybody can love who they like.
I want you to go so far beyond that and love people that I like
the marginalized. And in the same way he's telling
the audience of the family everybody loves their family,
The the love he is calling us to is not going to be tested by
applying it to people that you already love.
Husbands and wives are meant to love one another.
Fathers and sons are meant to love one another.
What Jesus is doing is using such extreme language that he is
elevating the call. He's using the word hate so that
you would understand how extreme the love that you are called to
love him with is. 1 commentator put put it this way, hate is
hyperbolic or it's an exaggerating language meant to
shock the listener into recognizing the absolute
priority of Christ over every competing allegiance in
Matthew's Gospel. He softens it in a way to help
us understand that it It isn't that you are supposed to feel
vile hatred towards people you naturally love, but you are
supposed to see them and realize that that is not the love that
Jesus is calling you to love him with.
In Matthew he says whoever loves his father or mother more than
me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves his son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
So again, the commentator says this.
He's saying that our love for Jesus, our devotion to Jesus,
and our commitment to Christ, our loyalty to Him, is to be of
such forceful, energizing strength that even our best love
for our spouse, our longing for our children, our genuine
interest in our own well-being will actually be seen to look
like a total disregard in comparison to our devotion to
Christ. In other words, you will hate
anything that keeps you from loving the main thing.
Now let's just put pause on this being a sermon based off the
teachings of Jesus. Jesus is telling you something
that is actually just in line with how the world works.
No doubt. Whether or not you've meant to
apply this to your life or not, any of you who have ever devoted
your life to anything have become so interested in that one
thing that you were willing to reject other things.
So I'll go first. Once again, when I was a kid,
you guys are just going down memory lane with me right now.
I, I loved soccer so much. I joined a team and my mom gave
me and my mom signed me up for all the lessons that I could get
and I also had a competing interest.
I also played the piano as a youngster and I also had lessons
for that. And there came a point where my
love for soccer was so great as a little guy that loved to play,
that any time it was time to do the other thing.
What did I tell my mom? Mom, I hate piano.
I don't want to do it anymore. I hate it now.
I actually don't hate piano. I actually did kind of enjoy it
and I kind of liked it, but in comparison to the main thing
that I was after, I had no time for it.
I didn't want anything to do with it.
No doubt any of you who have a skill or a talent, any of you
who have learned an instrument or a language or have done
anything to master something, have actually hated something
else and let hobbies aside. Any of you who are married and
made a commitment to one person actually in this language, we're
unpacking it, but in this language, when you said I love
you, when I look at my wife across the aisle and I said I
love you, I'm going to die with you or for you.
It was like I was saying I in comparison to the love I have
for this one woman. Every other woman in the world
is now in comparison something I hate.
I don't want to look at any other woman like this.
I don't want to feel these feelings for anyone else because
of the great love. And this is Jesus now saying to
really understand the call, you have to do that with Him.
And this is a point where you should pause.
All of you should pause. And I will pause with you to say
the audacity. Consider the audacity of what
Jesus is asking. Consider anyone in your life
coming to you, a friend, a Co worker and trying to do this,
trying to say to you, you know, I know you, you're really good
friends with this person over here.
But unless you hate your friend, your friend over here, you can't
be my friend. I know that you really like our
Co workers, but unless you hate your Co workers and and love me
so much more than I don't even want to be around you.
Imagine someone coming to you. Imagine if a pastor did this.
You know, I know you got your family.
I'm so glad you're part of the church.
I know you're married, but unless you love this church more
than you love your family, unless you hate them compared to
the way you love me, you can't be a part of it.
Now, as your pastor, I just want to say, if anyone ever did that
to you, run, OK? They're not good people.
And if they did it in the name of religion, they're a cult
leader. They're horrible and we stop
here so that you can make a very important inference of the text
of what Jesus is doing. The only way that Jesus can do
this is if he's God Incarnate. The only way that Jesus could
come to anyone and say if you really want any part of me, I
have to be the object of your worship is if that he is God in
human flesh. And so some of you, this is your
off ramp. If Jesus is a moral teacher, if
Jesus and his teachings is a guide to life, if the Bible is a
nice take it or leave it book, this will not work.
But if Jesus is who he says he is, if the Jesus that is being
presented to you is the Jesus that rose again on the third day
and exists in the heavenly places coming again, then you
would be crazy not to bend the knee.
Consider what he says. Anyone who does not put me at
the object of their worship cannot be my disciple.
Now I want to let that really sink in.
He says cannot. Welcome to the multitude.
You can come to church at any level of devotion.
You can listen to the sermons and YouTube is free.
Great sermons out there. But he says if you want to be a
disciple, if you want the life that ioffer, I must be the
object of your worship. He doesn't say if I'm not, if
you love other people more than me.
Join the junior varsity team and talk to the pastor when you're
ready. He says it will not happen.
So here is the the challenge as it's really supposed to hit you.
Some of you are here, no doubt with a greater love and a
devotion and a reason for being here that is not actually the
worship of Jesus, the living God.
I've just been a pastor long enough to know that some people
come as a act of devotion to someone else.
I've met people over the years who said, you know, I like your
church. I'm really here because I
started dating a girl who comes here, and she told me you
couldn't keep dating unless I started coming.
So yeah, thanks for letting me come here.
It's like, you're welcome to come.
You're not a disciple. You love your girlfriend more
than you love Jesus, which means you're not a disciple.
There are people that I've met over the years who come and
they're like, man, my marriage is on the brink.
My wife told me that the only way I could, we could even give
this another second chance is if I start coming.
So I'm coming to the men's thing tonight because if I don't, I
might lose my wife. It's like, great come and maybe
your wife will thank you. You're not a disciple.
Jesus says unless you love me so much that everything else
becomes a secondary and lesser love to the point that it would
look like hatred. You're just part of the crowd.
And this is where the sermon begins to offer you some signs
of life. Jesus is saying, for any of this
to work, I have to be God. And he is saving you from the
reality that anything you love greater than God will in fact
become your God. He's saving us from this
horrible truth that all too often we have to realize after
we've hit the emptiness of the soul, that if we try to save our
own lives, we'll lose it. If we try to love ourselves
first, we'll end up hating our lives.
If you try to make your marriage the object of your worship and
God is there to come alongside, you will end up hating your
marriage. If you try to make your kids the
object of your primary devotion and everything you are is
obsessed with your children and the love you have for them, your
children will hate you. And it's not.
This is not a lesson you have to wait for a preacher to tell you.
This is just a reality of life, and we have all sorts of ways
that this culture just gives us example after example after
example. You know, one way that you could
see this is anyone who just loves beauty.
You know what happens when someone just like, just what I
just love being beautiful? They're going to hate the way
they look. They're going to just do
everything they can and one surgery after the other and
eventually they're going to look in the mirror and they're going
to see what we all see is just not working.
Anybody who just loves the idea of gaining great wealth and you
love that and that's the life you want to love.
You know what you're going to hate your bank account.
You're never going to look at it and be like I'm here, I've made
it always going to be one more dollar that's just keeping you
from the from the satisfaction of your soul.
Anybody who loves their life to the point of comfort.
Just everything you do is to get the blank space in the calendar
where you can finally get away and have your alone time to just
get some comfort and ease and enjoy the news feed.
You are going to hate your alone time.
It's a bottomless pit of never ending desire to find the thing
can actually absorb your devotion.
So Jesus say if you don't hate those things and love me, you're
going to you're going to hate your life.
Look what John Piper says. The Son of God's glory was made
to shine at the center of the solar system of our soul.
And when it does, all the planets of our life are held in
their proper orbit. God set up creation, and he put
the sun in the middle of our solar system, and the perfectly
aligned planets orbit around it. And Piper says that's like the
glory of God. When it's the center of our
devotion in our soul. Everything else in your life
will orbit perfectly around it. And when you put anything else,
you're going to find yourself living a life that you
eventually hate. So Jesus says you want to be my
disciple, hate everything but me, you, you get that lesson and
you're walking towards how to unlock everything else.
So some of you have made it this far and you're thinking, OK,
what do I do? So Jesus gives you now the
Master Good Shepherd is going to give you your invitation to
follow. If you're tracking with him so
far, He now says in verse 27, this is your call to action.
Whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my
disciple. You want to put me at the center
of your life. Follow me all the way to the
cross. Two things now he said that will
disqualify you. You have any other devotion that
is not Jesus at the center and you're unwilling to actually
deny yourself, exchange your old life for your life in Christ.
That's the cross. And I'll I'll tell you you we've
referenced seemingly every week that we've been in the Gospel of
Luke that we're framing this whole series in the simple title
the journey to the cross because Luke Chapter 9 says we're going
to Jerusalem, going to the cross and follow me, pick up your
cross and follow me. And every week it seems like
that the path gets more narrow and narrow and narrow until
Jesus will be hanging on the cross on Good Friday.
And if you're like me, I think of that series title and I just
think of just the majesty of Jesus dying on his cross for my
sin. Well, we're now going so far
into the series that we're going to come to the deeper lesson
that if you actually believe that Jesus died on the cross for
your sin, then the journey to the cross is now yours.
He's calling you to be a disciple that comes after him.
You're no longer living your life as though God is some sort
of guide to your life giving you what you want.
You are now rejecting self governance and self-interest and
self-centered living. And you're saying I follow Jesus
to the point of my own sacrifice.
This is why he's about to say you better know the cost because
salvation in Christ is free. But discipleship, where he takes
your life that was going towards a life you're going to hate, and
he pulls it into the new life of Christ, will cost you the rest
of your life. So there's a critical moment
that we will study coming up in the Gospel of Luke that will
become the question, the $1,000,000 question that every
disciple should ask. What does it practically look
like to pick up my cross? How do I do that?
Well, remember Jesus says come after me.
So what we what we have to do to answer that question is see how
Jesus picked up his cross. And I'll tell you this in
accordance to everything we've shared so far, the cross will
always put you in a place that will challenge your natural
instinct, challenge what you would like to do, or challenge
who you already love or challenge who you would invite
to dinner. And if we want to see how Jesus
got to the point of picking up his cross, we have to see how he
overcame his instinct to not. In other words, your cross
moments will not be something you're like, I can't wait for
this, this is amazing. I'm going to wear this as
jewelry and put it on the stage of my church 'cause I just love
every instance that I have to pick up my cross.
It's actually opposite. There's a simple moment where
Jesus is wrestling the cross. Gospel of Luke will tell us in
chapter 22 that on the night he was betrayed, he went to the
Garden of Gethsemane to pray. And what was he praying?
He said, Father, is there any way that the mission of
redemption could be completed without my death on the cross?
Let this cup pass from me. And just to confirm what Jesus
teaches in the way that prayer was answered.
He is the way, the truth and the life.
No one gets to the Father except through the sacrifice of Jesus
to pay the price of sin. The answer was nevertheless not
your will be done, not my will be done, but yours.
That's the beginning of the cross.
The beginning of the cross is to wrestle with the will of God in
your life to the point where you say, nevertheless, I belong to
you. I no longer govern my own life.
Any of you who have been following Jesus in any serious
way have moments where your life was at the crossroads, where you
would have done one thing and the Lord called you to another
and you picked up the cross to obey him and you accepted the
call to be discipled. I remember one of those moments
in my life. In fact, it's worth sharing
because it gives you a little insight into how I got here.
And I start serving at Calvary Chapel Boise and leading this
church. Well, it was, I assure you it
was quite contrary to my own plans for my life.
It was, this is not the result of me having a, you know, a 30
year plan for my life that ended behind this pulpit.
I was actually right before God called me to this place, I was
living in Saint Martin, the Caribbean.
Oh, what a beautiful place. Some of you have been there and
it's just it. It was me trying to save my own
life. I loved it.
It was the climate I wanted, the blue waters.
I was living as a deckhand on a yacht, just simple life.
I was even going to a small little church.
I said, Lord, I am called to be an usher at this church until I
die, which is my dream. And the Lord would not let me
go. And he called me to come back to
Boise to start serving at this church.
And here's how the cross moment hit me as I remember, you know,
in the beautiful palm tree sunset of Saint Martin
Caribbean. I said, but Lord, it's winter
there. It's cold.
I finally escaped and my bones feel good.
It doesn't matter what I want. The cross means you do the will
of God because he is wiser and more loving and more caring for
your life than you are. And any one of you who have
taken the call of Christ seriously had a moment where you
negotiated with the will of God. And the cross meant,
nevertheless, Lord, I'll do it. I trust you that you can take me
places that I don't see. The final destination for the
cross is to say, Nevertheless, Lord, you're the Lord.
I'm not, and I will lay down my life so that you can pick it up
over and over and over again. And I assure you that the cross
is not one distant day 15 years ago where you got saved or
answered a call. Jesus says pick up your cross
daily. There is a cross for you to
bear. The will of God will not come
with sunshine and flowers tomorrow morning.
Whenever you live out the will of God, you are wrestling to the
ground through the power of prayer, your flesh that would do
otherwise. And you say, nevertheless, Lord,
again I pick up my cross. And he says, if you're not
willing to live that kind of life where the cross becomes a
pattern of your life, you can come to church and you're part
of the multitude. You're just not a disciple.
And of course, Jesus is saying all of these things, not so that
no one would follow him, but that people would understand
what they're following him towards.
And this is where we shift from maybe some of you listening to
this and thinking, wow, I guess I'm going to have to exchange
the, you know, the, the, the good life on earth for the
drudgery of the Christian life. And I hope heaven's not boring.
Maybe some of you have denied the call of Christ because you
really do think the exchange is not worth it.
And so we'll end by a very brief but important examination of the
parable that we read. He said which of you, intending
to build a tower, does not sit down 1st and count the cost?
Whether he has enough to finish, lest after he has laid the
foundation is not able to finish.
All who see will mock him. The man began to build but was
not able to finish. Says What is the cost?
What would it take for you to set out and build a tower?
The second parable he says. Or consider a king who's
thinking about war. Both of these parables were
given so that people would consider the cost, but they're
also given so that people would consider the reward.
I'm speaking to those of you who feel a little ho hum about
following Jesus. I guess following Jesus is like,
I guess exchange the good life. I'm here and I'm sitting through
the sermon, but I can't wait to get to the game.
Jesus says that following him is like setting out to build a
tower that might be lost on our modern ears because we live in
Urban Development, so we see high rises everywhere.
But consider what these people must have heard.
Tower. You're going to use my life to
build a tower. I'm going to go out and build
something that's got a foundation and it's got, it's
going to take a whole crew of people and it's going to go up
to the heavens and people will look back and think what a great
feat. It's costly because it's got a
crown. There's nothing you can do in
this life that's worth any of your time.
There's nothing that you would devote yourself to that has any
reward worth your devotion that doesn't require you to actually
commit to it. And the the the ultimate fork in
the road of your life is, is it better to commit to something
that you can make a great tower for your name on earth, or is it
better to commit to something where you are building on the
foundation of Christ for the glory of God?
That is the fundamental question that's being asked.
If you put him at the center of your life and you devoted to Him
and you wrestled your will to the ground and followed the will
of God, would you be? Would you be getting a good deal
on the exchange? That's what we all secretly
wrestle with. It goes all the way back to the
garden when they wondered, is God really being good by
preventing us from eating from this tree?
Our discipleship has to wrestle to the ground.
The question of is your life better in Christ?
Is your greatness greater in Christ?
And so let me just tell you, we're following Jesus all the
way to the cross actually ends. Following Jesus to the cross
does not end with death. This is why we call Good Friday
good. He paid the price for our sins,
and on the third day he rose again.
Paul says the Philippians have this mind in you that was in
Christ who emptied Himself, coming in the form of a bond
certain, obedient to the point of death, now sitting at the
right hand of God, with the name that every knee will bow and
every tongue will confess that He is Lord.
The cross of Christ brought the glory of Christ, and there is no
greater thing that you can do with your life then to fulfill
the perfect will of God, the good works that He's prepared
beforehand, to fulfill the mission on your life to bring
Him glory. It will be the glory that
outshines everything else, and we will all be tempted by some
way to make our tower on earth. Just think of who in our world
we celebrate as great. And mostly the world celebrates
things that will go by very quickly.
Right now, in just this little season of life, you will be
presented with the Grammys, the Olympics, and the Oscars.
And I assure you, anyone Who Will Win any of those things
counted the cost. They did the hard work and they
accomplished something with their life.
But their accomplishment is a vapor.
It will come and it will go and they will be forgotten.
The the greatest people in the world right now are not
receiving rewards to a round of applause.
The people doing great things with their life right now are
sacrificing their lives so that others can live.
The greatest among us. There are moms who woke up in
the middle of the night last night to care for a child and no
one saw them. There are dads that work lay
down their lives to provide for their kids to disciple them in
Christ and no one thanks them. There are missionaries that we
pray for that are going to spend their whole life reaching a few
souls for the Kingdom and no one's greet him at the airport
with applause and trophies. And yet you should have heard it
in nursery rhymes. One life to live, how quick it
pass. Only what is done for Christ
will last. Count the cost of your devotion.
What are you really after? What are you actually building
with your life? So for two people, we now end
this sermon and we'll, we'll, we'll prepare our hearts for
communion. No doubt we are talking to some
people. The word preached out this
morning is going to some people who can hear this sermon preach
and say I'm probably not a disciple.
And for some of you, I actually applaud you.
For those of you who have considered the cost of calling
yourself a follower of Jesus, and you realize you're going to
have to say no to some things you really like and you're going
to have to use your time and resources and treasures in ways
that you've got other plans for. And you've said, you know, I'm
not ready for that. At least you've counted the
cost. At least you're not part of the
crowd acting like going to church is hopefully going to
turn out good in the end. Jesus said would that you were
hot or cold. At least you're cold.
And then the second crowd, those of us who we have our moments
where we saw a vision of salvation, Jesus on the cross
for our sins, and we said, Lord, I want to follow you.
Is your life orbiting with Jesus at the center?
Have you counted every other devotion, A devotion that would
look like hate compared to the love that you have for Christ?
Have you consider that God's will for your life is going to
do great things for His name and your joy?
Is your devotion something that you can see is turning into good
fruit? Jesus says unless you hate
mother, father, sister, brother, you cannot be my disciple.
What he's really saying is I want you to love me more than
anything else. And the promise of the Good
Shepherd is that he will give you life and life more abundant.
Everything will orbit perfectly around Christ.
Everyone else will be blessed as you put him in the center.
Thanks for joining us today. If you would like to watch the
full service, check out the link in the description.
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