Derek: 00:00

Last summer, I had the privilege of visiting Germany for the first time in my life. That was a big deal for me because I love history, and Europe seems to be filled with so much more history than The United States. Now sometimes I don't know that having more history is really a good thing though because it seems like most of the history that makes it into our studies is centered around terrible events, wars, assassinations, genocides, you know, those types of things. Yet those dark times, for as dark as they are, are often drowned out by even brighter lights that those times tend to produce. The Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis is probably one of the darkest times in recent history.

Derek: 00:41

Yet, such a time as this produced two beautiful Christian lights who have been an inspiration to me. The first one I'm sure you know, and that is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a Christian pastor under the Nazi regime who subverted the government by saving Jewish lives and by preaching against the Nazi regime's godlessness. For his crimes, he was eventually executed. Another bright light during the Nazi regime was a girl who is largely unknown outside of Germany.

Derek: 01:09

Her name was Sophie Scholl. Sophie along with her brother and some friends had a secret organization which handed out anti Nazi literature and called the people to resist the lies. For her actions, Sophie was executed by the Nazis. Both of these lights, Bonhoeffer and Scholl, show us what following Jesus may eventually lead to, suffering and premature death. Despite hardship though, both Bonhoeffer and Scholl practiced what they preached and they followed Jesus even unto death.

Derek: 01:41

But how? Because they each lived focused on incarnation. Bonhoeffer had written in his famous work, The Cost of Discipleship, cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Bonhoeffer embraced this ethic with his life. And likewise, on her way to the guillotine, Sophie Scholl said, how can we expect righteousness to prevail when there's hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause?

Derek: 02:13

Such a fine sunny day and I have to go, but what does my death matter if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action? Both Scholl and Bonhoeffer counted their lives as lost to the way of Jesus. Tonight, I want us to look at what true discipleship is. A discipleship which causes us to become incarnations of Jesus to the world around us, just like it did for Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Sophie Scholl. Let's take a look at the text of Luke fourteen twenty five to 34.

Derek: 02:46

Now great crowds accompanied him and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, or whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000.

Derek: 03:29

And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile, it is thrown out. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

Derek: 03:53

At this point in Jesus' ministry, he's surrounded by great crowds of people. He just spent the last few chapters pushing back against the religious leaders and declaring how all were now invited to the banquet and to the wedding feast, even those from the edges of society. It's no wonder great crowds surrounded Jesus. But if you know how Jesus usually works, you understand that Jesus seems to do the most ineffective things as the crowds get bigger. In John two, we see as more and more people came to believe in Jesus, John says that Jesus didn't entrust himself to them because he knew what was in the hearts of men.

Derek: 04:30

And earlier, when the crowds wanted to make Jesus king, he ran away, even going so far as walking on water to get away from them. And of course, there was that time when Jesus's ranks were overflowing with disciples, and he went and made them think that he was a cannibal, that they had to eat his body and drink his blood. Jesus is going to do the same kind of thing right here in Luke 14. It's as though he's saying, hey, there are a lot of you guys. Are you really sure you wanna follow me?

Derek: 04:58

Alright, here's what that means. That's a big question for us tonight. What does it mean to follow Jesus truly? What is, as Bonhoeffer wrote, the cost of discipleship? What is the cost of discipleship?

Derek: 05:14

Well, first, we must change our allegiance if we wish to be a disciple of Jesus. What do we mean by allegiance? Well, first, Jesus tells us that if we don't hate our own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, then we cannot be His disciples. Now, can you think of a list of anyone else who you'd do more for than this group of people? Your very own family?

Derek: 05:38

Those you love the most? Actually, Jesus does think of someone who you might love more than them because He adds one other person to that list. Jesus says that to be his disciple, one must hate even his own life. There isn't anyone that humans tend to love more than themselves. In fact, Paul uses self love in Ephesians as an example to depict how husbands are to treat their own wives.

Derek: 06:01

Husbands are to love their wives like their own bodies because nobody hates their bodies, but rather they feed themselves and take care of themselves. We are to love others like we love ourselves because self love is the default condition of humanity. We know how to love ourselves. But Jesus here seems to be pretty harsh. Really?

Derek: 06:24

We have to hate our families? We have to hate ourselves? And please don't get hung up on this concept of hatred because Jesus isn't saying that we should hate in an emotional sense. In fact, He commands us elsewhere to not hate and even equates hatred with murder. First John three also says the same thing that he who hates his brother is a murderer.

Derek: 06:48

So Jesus doesn't mean that we ought to hate our families in an emotional sense, but rather in a comparative sense. Just a chapter and a half later, in fact, Luke, in Luke sixteen thirteen, Luke uses this word hate again, where he says, No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. If we try to serve two masters, if we try to have dual allegiances, we will love one and hate the other. Or to clarify, Jesus says that we'll be devoted to one while despising the other.

Derek: 07:26

Hatred of our families and ourselves doesn't look like violent anger, but rather like a change of devotion and allegiance. To be a true disciple of Jesus, he tells us that we must be committed solely to Him. While a change in allegiance would be challenging enough, Jesus also demands something else from those who would seek to follow Him. We must carry our cross if we desire to be a disciple of Jesus. We must bear our crosses, and we must do it continuously.

Derek: 07:55

So what does it mean to carry one's own cross? Well, we could make that concept mean a lot of different things. And some have taken bearing our cross to mean that we are all to become martyrs for Jesus, angering the world so much that they seek to kill us. Oftentimes, those who take bearing cross as martyrdom, don't seek to live peaceably with all as Paul admonishes us to do in Romans, but rather they seek to make everything a fight for Jesus. These want to be martyrs are hated for trying to put crosses on everyone else's back in order that they might receive their own self inflicted hardship and call it cross.

Derek: 08:33

On the other end of the spectrum, some have taken the bearing of cross to mean that any suffering we experience as a Christian, a cold, a loss of a loved one, a terminal disease, any of those counts as cross. Now certainly sickness, sorrow, and death are all tragedies brought about by the curse which the cross begins to address, but is natural evil that happens to me really the bearing of my cross? I think Luke is helpful here in showing us a third option as he records Jesus as having discussed the idea of cross once before, just a few chapters earlier. In Luke nine twenty three through 24, Jesus says that whoever wants to be His disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily. This act of turning one's life over to Jesus will counter intuitively save their life.

Derek: 09:18

Luke here helps us to understand a bit more what Jesus meant by hating ourselves. But he also helps us to understand what it means to bear our crosses. It means to deny ourselves and wholeheartedly follow Jesus wherever that leads us. Bearing our cross means the denial of ourselves and the circumstances which follow as a result of giving our allegiance to Jesus. Luke helps us to see that not only must a true disciple bear their cross, but the bearing of cross must be something which is done continuously.

Derek: 09:48

In Luke nine, he writes that we bear our cross daily. While here in Luke 14, he just writes that we bear our cross and go after Jesus. Luke 14 isn't as clear as to this being a daily process, but you can imagine what would happen if you're trying to follow someone who's walking a long distance and you take a break for a few days. It doesn't take too long before that person you're following is out of sight and out of reach. This continuous revolution that Jesus calls us to reminds me a lot of other revolutions and revolutionaries.

Derek: 10:18

Whenever a revolution or a war begins, many are excited to join the fight, especially the young men. We saw this very thing happen with the war in Ukraine next door. Young men are eager to fight and to die for a cause. Dying would be a glorious honor. In a retelling of one of history's revolutions, there's a story of a young man who wants to fight so badly, but his commanding officer, the general, has other more important duties for him to fulfill.

Derek: 10:46

And he needs this man to stay safe, away from the front lines. The two men get into a heated debate and whether or not the young man can seek glory on the battlefield. And the general finally says to a subordinate, young man, dying is easy. Living is harder. Almost anyone can die for a cause if you give them the right cause.

Derek: 11:08

But to live for a cause with passion and perseverance and without compromise day after day after day, that's hard, maybe even impossible. Jesus calls on his disciples to follow him and to deny themselves unto permanent death if it comes to that, but primarily through a continuous daily dying to ourselves through life. So to be a disciple of Jesus, we must change allegiance and we must bear our cross. But there's one more thing Jesus demands of those who would seek to follow Him. We must renounce all that we have in order to be a disciple of Jesus.

Derek: 11:46

Verse 33 begins with a very important word. Therefore, Jesus says, therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. That therefore tells us that whatever came before is going to provide us a framework for understanding the concept being discussed. And in the preceding verses, Luke has told us that disciples of Jesus must hate their families, they must take up their crosses, or we could say deny themselves. Then Jesus gives two illustrations to help drive home his concluding idea of renunciation.

Derek: 12:20

First, Jesus tells the story of a man who attempts to build a tower. The man begins to lay a foundation, but then realizes that he doesn't have enough money to finish the project. Of course, the man is ridiculed by those around him for his poor planning, skills, and his foolishness. The second story Jesus tells us about a king who recognizes that there's an invading army coming against him. Jesus declares that this king who is being attacked would be foolish to just blindly defend himself because what if the enemy had twice as many soldiers?

Derek: 12:50

Rather, a wise king would seek to know his enemy's strength so he can make peace if he's outnumbered rather than lead himself and his people to certain destruction. In both illustrations, we see a contrasting of wise and foolish people. The wise will calculate and prepare while the foolish will act without thinking ahead. This is what Jesus has called His disciples to consider. Those many, many disciples who are currently following Him, this great crowd of disciples.

Derek: 13:18

He is telling them that they must count the cost of discipleship of allegiance to Jesus. And what is that cost? Therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. The price of allegiance to Jesus is a renunciation of everything. Jesus leaves nothing, absolutely nothing untouched.

Derek: 13:40

No family, no self, no thing. All of it is claimed by the king of creation, the creator of the universe, the sustainer of all things. Now I don't know how this makes you feel, but for me, the passage is overwhelming. Who can meet such demands for discipleship? But always when it seems like there is no way, with Jesus, there is hope.

Derek: 14:05

Immediately following Jesus' call on his true followers to renounce all, he goes into a seemingly unrelated idea of salt. In fact, many versions of the Bible choose to break this section on salt apart from the previous verses. But I think it's vital that we keep these sections together. Jesus has just declared to His followers that they are to renounce all things. Then immediately, He tells them something that they must not renounce, their saltiness.

Derek: 14:31

But what is this saltiness that Jesus' disciples are to maintain? I've always grown up thinking that the saltiness here meant a flavoring or a preservative, which makes some sense if you read Matthew's account of the event. Yet in Luke's version, which isn't typically the one that we use for this imagery, he writes that losing saltiness makes it worthless for soil or for the manure pile. Clearly, Luke is speaking about salt being used for an agricultural purpose rather than a flavoring or food preservative. And sure enough, when you do a little digging, you find that there's significant documentation of salt being used both now and in ancient times for things like keeping moisture in the soil, killing weeds, preserving manure and amplifying its fertilizing properties, and a bunch of other things.

Derek: 15:16

And this is true of both sodium chloride, which we usually think of as table salt, in which the Jews obtained from mineral deposits or the Dead Sea. But it's also true of other salts that were common in ancient Israel, like potash made from wood ash and fires. Jesus is almost certainly referring to the salt as a tool of agricultural growth, not a tool of preservation and flavoring. And he's declaring in this passage that his disciples must not lose their saltiness or their ability to facilitate growth. When you look at the original word used here for the idea of losing saltiness, the word picture becomes even more pronounced.

Derek: 15:55

Some versions in English say that if the salt loses its taste, how will its saltiness be restored? But the word translated as taste isn't actually in the Greek. Jesus literally says that the salt has become foolish. He uses a word with the root maras where we get the English word moron. If the salt becomes foolish or a moron, how will its saltiness be restored?

Derek: 16:21

That leaves us with a very heavy question here that we have to ask ourselves. How can we renounce all things, our possessions, our families, ourselves? And if we fail to renounce those things, if we fail to change our allegiance, if we become foolish, clinging to those things instead of the Jesus, how can we ever regain our saltiness? How can we have any hope? We can't.

Derek: 16:47

But with Jesus, there is hope. What's important to remember here is that while we are to become salt, it is Jesus who is the source of our saltiness. As Jesus is teaching here in Luke 14, He's teaching to a large group of vagabonds and nobodies. In fact, in the first chapter of first verse of chapter 15, the Pharisees are complaining that Jesus was receiving all of these tax collectors and sinners, the meek of the earth or perhaps the manure of the earth. Jesus is the salt and He's salting the barren ground and the manure piles.

Derek: 17:21

While Matthew's version of the salt tells us that we are the salt of the earth, Mark writes that we are to have the salt in ourselves. Our hope is never that we will be able to perfectly follow Jesus or perfectly be salt, but rather that He will salt our lives so that we, the barren soil and the piles of manure, might over time be transformed into flourishing life and spread that life to others. Or as Jesus says in John 15, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. We will only bear much fruit so long as He is in us and we remain in Him. And maybe that doesn't provide you with enough hope.

Derek: 18:00

Maybe you're stuck on this idea that Christ's work is still dependent on your ability to grasp onto Him firmly enough. The book of Luke doesn't leave listeners there, however. Luke tells us that we are not to lose our saltiness. We are not to stray from Jesus. But when we do, there's hope.

Derek: 18:19

The very next group of stories in Luke chapter 15 are stories that go on to tell of that which is lost but is found by the owner. A lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. So how can salt regain its saltiness? How can the foolish embrace wisdom?

Derek: 18:41

They can allow themselves to be salted by Jesus and His wise words. However, we are not to do this lightly because Jesus declares to us what remaining in Him means. It means that we renounce all things and change our allegiance. We will not do this perfectly, but if Jesus remains in us, salting our lives, there will be growth. Jesus's words here in Luke should cause us to have hope, but they should also cause us to fearfully reflect on the growth or lack thereof in our lives and allegiances.

Derek: 19:13

There's a great cost to discipleship, but there's an even greater cost to not following Jesus, foolishness. My prayer for us tonight then is that we would allow Jesus to salt our lives and through His work, we would become salt in the lives of those around us. Jesus incarnate.