Message Info:
- Text: Luke 14:25-35, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 54
- Date: Sunday morning, April 26, 2026
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Audio File: Open/Download
Listen Online:
Watch Online:
Transcript:
⟦Transcript⟧
Well, anytime there’s a war, it typically ends in negotiations with the two sides sitting down and saying, we will do this and we will agree to this, if you’ll agree to this, and they kind of talk back and forth and work out a plan, a negotiated ending to it. It’s not uncommon, though, if one side has such mastery over the other for them to say, no, there’s no negotiation, there are no terms, we will only accept unconditional surrender.
That means the losing side is expected to put down their arms, is expected to come to the winning side and say, we give up, whatever you say happens now, happens now. And that’s a hard place to get to. You have to be thoroughly defeated to get to that point. Probably the most famous example in history was at the end of World War II. And there were thoughts among some leaders in Germany and Japan that maybe we could make a peace deal with America and France and Great Britain.
We can make a peace deal with them and surrender to them, but we keep fighting the Soviets. And the Allies said, no, we will only accept unconditional surrender. Well, we’ll surrender if this part of the government can stay intact to lead the country in the aftermath. No, we will only accept unconditional surrender. And the war only ended in every theater when the defeated side came and said, we surrender.
There are no terms, There are no conditions. You tell us what happens next.
Now, we’re not at war with God in the same way. The Bible does teach that in our sin is enmity with God, this conflict with God.
But it’s not a perfect analogy to say we’re at war with God in the same way. But what’s common between this analogy and where we’re going in the Scriptures today is that Jesus does claim full mastery over you and me. and we are expected to come to him in terms of unconditional surrender not Lord I’ll follow you if you’ll still let me do x y and z Lord I’ll follow you under this condition Lord I will follow you and I’ll obey you in every other area if you’ll still just let me be in charge of this one we are expected to come to him as believers and follow him without conditions we’re going to look at a passage in Luke chapter 14 today as we continue our study through the book of Luke. We’re at verse 25 this morning. Right on the heels of these conversations that we’ve been looking at the last couple of weeks where Jesus has been talking to the crowds at dinner and about dinner.
He’s using something that we do every day as something that they would understand as opportunities to teach about how we end up in the kingdom. And today he kind of moves on from the dinner analogies because they’re still not quite getting it. This group, this crowd that he’s talking to, it includes Pharisees, it includes scribes, people that really thought they could probably make a deal with God because they’re upstanding pillars of the community. They’re religious. They’ve done all the right things.
They’ve got all the right pedigree. Surely God is going to be happy with whatever they offer him. And Jesus teaches the crowd and says, no, when you come to God, it is unconditional surrender.
So if you have not yet turned with me to Luke 14, please go ahead if you have your Bible. If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 14, it’ll be on the screen for you.
But once you find it, if you’ll stand as we read together. Luke 14, 25 through 35 this morning. Luke said, now large crowds were going along with 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 and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
So then none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his possessions. Therefore, salt is good, but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear, and you may be seated.
Jesus here is talking about the condition required for you and me to follow Him, for us to be His disciples, about what it means to come to Jesus on His terms. And unlike the Pharisees, who would approach God and just offer Him what was ever convenient for them, and assume that He was going to be satisfied with that, Jesus says we come to God unconditionally.
If our goal is to follow Jesus and to be a disciple, That means coming to him without conditions. And he lays out a few characteristics here of what this means that we’re going to talk about this morning. And I’m going to walk you through. And just in the interest of full disclosure, the Lord has been knocking me around with this passage all week. Every line of this is convicting.
And I pray that it will be the same way for you, not so that you walk out of here this morning feeling awful, but so you walk out of here this morning with a sense of what you need to do. But Jesus begins this statement to this crowd. You know, if you didn’t know better, it’s almost like Jesus was trying not to build a big following.
So many of the things that Jesus did during his ministry, they don’t make sense to us because we gauge the success of somebody’s ministry or somebody’s influence or the success of a church or what have you on how many people just come and flock to it. And here Jesus has crowds following after him, following him around, and he’s turning to them and saying, oh no, it’s not this easy. It’s not this easy to follow me. You would almost think he’s trying to not develop a following.
But he begins this by telling them that following Him is going to cost them relationally. It’s going to cost them in terms of their relationships. And his point is that a disciple loves Jesus above every earthly relationship.
Now, this is kind of an uncomfortable verse, verse 26. He says here, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. To us, that sounds incredibly harsh. And it doesn’t, if we just take it at face value, it doesn’t make sense to us, because as Christians, we’re taught to love others. And here he says, but no, you’re supposed to hate your parents and your children.
You’re supposed to hate everybody. What is he talking about here? It’s a matter of priority. it’s a matter of what we prioritize he’s not saying here that we literally hate our families i could see where if we’re just reading it by itself that we could easily we could easily come to that conclusion but elsewhere he told us with these same groups of people that we’re supposed to love him more than them and that’s the same way that’s the same thing he’s saying here just in a more intentionally shocking way to get their attention.
But this was a common way of talking among the Jews in the first century, that you would compare greater and lesser in different terms. So if you were going to say love one greater than the other, one greater love and one lesser love, you might call the lesser love hate in comparison. Doesn’t mean you literally hate your parents. You two paying attention, taking notes? Does not mean that you literally hate your parents.
It doesn’t mean you literally hate your children. Hopefully that’s reassuring to you. It doesn’t mean that you literally hate other people.
It means that in order to be a disciple of Jesus, our love for Him should so eclipse every other love in our life that it looks like hate in comparison. I am supposed to love my wife and my children with everything that I have. I’m supposed to love the congregation that I serve with everything I have. And I’m supposed to love Jesus more than that.
What this is, is a matter of priority. It’s a matter of priority.
Because for these people, they were being called to follow Jesus, and there was going to be a relational cost. Their families weren’t going to like it.
In some cases, their families were going to disown them and treat them as though they were dead. And that was a serious calculation for people in this day and age. I’m interested in what Jesus is doing, but am I committed enough that I’m willing to walk away from everybody in my life if that’s what it costs? Not that we’re supposed to want them to walk away. but if the ultimatum is you turn from Jesus or we turn from you we are expected to choose Jesus and I realize that this is unusual for us because we typically where we live and in the time we live we’re not typically faced with the idea that our families are going to completely cut us off that everyone we know everyone in our community, everybody in our support system is going to cut us off if we follow Jesus.
We don’t face the same cost that they face, but there’s still a relational cost. There are still friendships that won’t ever be quite the same because we follow Jesus. There will be people in our families who will not understand the commitment that we’ve made. They won’t understand some of the choices that we make. They won’t understand some of the things that we prioritize.
And he’s telling us not that we hate them, but that if we’re going to follow him, he has to be the priority. Even if our children don’t like it, even if our parents don’t understand, even if our friends think we’re not as fun as we used to be, there is a relational cost involved in following Jesus, and it’s going to be higher for some than for others.
But it’s real no matter how high the cost, it’s still real. And being a disciple means following Jesus wherever He leads, regardless of what anybody else thinks or says. He’s telling us here that our priority should be Him, and our commitment and our love for Him should be so great that even as we are loving people around us with everything we have, our love for Jesus makes everything else look like hate in comparison.
And then it gets harder from there. And I know there’s nobody in here sitting here saying, well, that sounded easy.
But it gets harder from there. Verse 27, a disciple carries the cross daily.
He says, whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. It’s a matter of how we are willing to live. It describes a willingness to sacrifice and suffer and even die if that’s what Jesus calls us to do.
Now, you and I read this, and we take this in really metaphorical language. I heard you had car trouble. Oh, yeah, it’s just my cross to bear. Heard your team’s not doing that well this year. Oh, well, we’ve all got our cross to bear.
That is not what he’s describing. For us, this is an abstract concept. for them they had witnessed crucifixion in all of its gory reality they knew what it meant for somebody to carry their cross off to the place of crucifixion they knew what it meant for somebody to climb on that cross and lay down their life they knew what that looked what that looked like they knew the suffering that was involved because they’d seen it with their own eyes. They hadn’t experienced it the way Jesus was about to, but they were familiar with crucifixion in a way that we are not. And they understood crucifixion in a way that we don’t.
We sang this morning about the wondrous cross, And we sing of cherishing the old rugged cross. All of these things are true. We’re able to say that because we know the rest of the story. We know what Jesus did for us on the cross, and we know that the story of the cross didn’t end with the cross. We know that it ended with the empty tomb, and that changes the math.
But for them, there was nothing wondrous about a cross. There was nothing to cling to. There was nothing to cherish about the cross. It was an instrument of torture, and it was designed to be not only the most agonizing death they could inflict, but the most humiliating. And Jesus is calling us to take up our cross and follow him.
Not that we may be literally crucified. Odds are nobody in this room is going to be.
But for us to be willing to suffer whatever we have to suffer in order to be obedient to him. That we should be willing to suffer whatever humiliation in the eyes of men we have to in order to be obedient to him. We forget just how shocking this statement was to them. Take up your cross and follow me. He’s calling them to be willing to die, to be willing to sacrifice, to be willing to surrender their pride.
And he says that we have to do that daily. And if we can’t carry our cross and come after him, we can’t be his disciple.
Now, all of that, when we take it in context, is incredibly difficult. As a matter of fact, I submit to you, these are things that we can only do as the Holy Spirit enables us and empowers us. but in rash moments we will hear statements like that and we all become Peter at times I’ll go with you wherever that that was kind of Peter’s thing right before the crucifixion oh everybody else will deny you I won’t I’m willing to go all the way to death with you and Jesus cautioned him don’t don’t say things you don’t mean many of us in this room have probably been in a in a place in life where we’ve heard a statement like that about the cost of following Jesus and we’ve thought absolutely whatever it takes whatever it costs and then we get back to the real world and think oh I didn’t think this through because in moments of devotion it’s easy to make that commitment but Jesus in verses 28 through 32 calls us to pause for just a minute because a disciple counts the cost and commits fully. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want us to do what he’s just told us to do. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want us to sacrifice those things.
It’s that Jesus doesn’t want us to rashly commit to that and not follow through. Jesus doesn’t want us to get swept up in the emotion of the moment and say, I’ll do whatever with no intention of following through when things get difficult. He tells the story of building the tower. He said, who is going to build a tower and not first calculate the cost and see if he has enough to complete it? Although that sounds like half the project is discussed in the newspaper.
Who’s going to sit down and say, we’re going to start this big project? Maybe we’ll have enough to complete it, maybe we won’t.
He says, no, you’re supposed to sit down and figure out what it’s going to cost, and do you have enough to complete it? Otherwise, you’re going to lay the foundation, the tower’s going to sit there unfinished, and everybody’s going to mock you.
And then we get to verses 31 and 32, and he gives the analogy to war. What king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, doesn’t first sit down and see whether he can, I’m going to paraphrase here, but whether he can take the army of 20,000 with the 10,000 he’s got.
If he doesn’t sit down and strategize and figure out if this is going to work and is this the right move, if he doesn’t do that first, he picks a fight with the army of 20,000 and finds himself having to go hat in hand to the other side when he realizes that they’re going to be destroyed. And then you’ve had to offer that other side unconditional surrender. Jesus, again, is not trying to talk us out of following him.
Jesus wants us to make sure we’re ready to follow him to make sure we’ve thought it through the previous two points as I mentioned are things that we we might rashly agree to and it’s not wrong to agree to those yes Lord I will love you above everything else yes Lord I will take up my cross it’s not wrong to agree to those things it’s right but Jesus wants us to understand what we’re agreeing to. They are so hard that we should make sure before we even begin. By telling these stories, Jesus is calling his disciples to make sure before we commit too quickly.
Because committing to him will cost us everything. We can say we want to serve him, but that commitment to Jesus, it can’t be just a momentary reaction. He wants us to count the cost. He wants us to commit fully, and He wants us to follow through. And that should be our prayer for each of us, that we get to that place where we’ve already decided in our minds, we’ve already counted the cost, and said, I don’t care about costs in the future.
I don’t care about what may happen, what may not happen. I’ve counted the cost of following Jesus, and my answer is yes, no matter what, when He calls.
If that’s not where we are, that should be our prayer, that the Lord would get us to that place. As I said to you at the outset, The Lord has really stepped hard on my toes all week with this passage. I started working on this passage for this Sunday over a week ago. Knew what I was preaching on, knew what the Lord was asking of us.
And then in the midst of that time, this past week, most of you know I was in Denver with the McMurtries doing their final assessments for them to be able to go on the mission field with the North American Mission Board. And there is something about being in a room full of people who have said, yes, Lord, no matter what the cost, that will convict you about the times that you have not.
And we think, oh, it’s not like they’re going with the International Mission Board. Nobody’s going to Zaire. Nobody’s going to the Philippines. They’re going to North America.
These are people who are deliberately going to hard places. I met a couple that he had a great teaching job as a professor at Florida State University. And his family was thriving. And he started watching videos on YouTube about apologetics and about the Mormon church. And he said God broke his heart over people who need the gospel, not of works, but of what Jesus has done.
And God so convicted him and so broke him that they have uprooted their family and they have moved to Utah to share the gospel. and then folks that’s to say nothing of the McMurtries who you’ve met and this church has voted to support and be their sending church we know they’re going to Alaska we know that they’re going to a a wild place they’re going to a place that is four hours from what we would call civilization it was a situation where God began to break their heart for lost people in this valley who most of the churches have died out a generation ago and there’s very little gospel witness in these villages not only the native villages but the Anglo villages and they said Lord if you want us to go that’s where we’ll go. And they began to pray that God would work on the hearts of everybody in their family. And Derek said yes, and Val said yes, and the kids said yes, and now they’re going to Alaska. And there is something convicting about being in the presence of people who have said, yes, Lord, I don’t care what it costs.
I don’t care what it costs financially. I don’t care what it costs in convenience. I don’t care what it costs of my time. I don’t care what it costs of pulling me away from my career path. I don’t care that my family back home is going to be upset that I moved the grandkids away.
I don’t care about any of this. The only question in my mind is, Lord, have you called me to do this? And that decides whether it’s a yes. And to be completely honest with you, which I don’t know why people say that because it’s not like I’m standing here lying to you the rest of the time. God began to remind me of all the times I have not said yes.
Of all the times that my answer has been no or wait or let me just think about it and avoid the question. The reality is there’s about three different ministry projects that he’s put on my heart and made it clear to me that I’m supposed to pursue. And my question has been, well, can I afford it? Do I have time for it? What is so-and-so going to say?
What are they going to think? All of that’s irrelevant. All of that is irrelevant.
In deciding, do I do this, the only relevant question for us should be, did Jesus call me to do this? The rest of that, what people are going to think, what it costs, the time commitment, all of that, if that has any relevance at all, it may be relevant to how we do things, but not whether we do that or not. and God began to break me over how I have not said yes. And I know it’s common to think that as a pastor, you’ve got that all figured out, you’ve got that all nailed down, that saying yes thing. No, there have been too many times I’ve not said yes.
And that needs to change. Because I can’t stand before you and preach for you to say yes if I’m not going to. And the reality is we see God at work when we say yes.
In one of the trainings I was in this week, one of the questions they started off with is, what is something the Father has done in your church lately? That is a big question.
But as I began to answer that, I couldn’t not think of things that God has done in our church. I see people growing. I see people falling more in love with Jesus. I see people stepping out and trying new ministries. And things are happening because people are saying yes.
We have a feeding ministry five days a week where people come and get sack lunches. And that helps them. I mean, it helps them for a day. And that has gone on much longer than we thought we could sustain it.
Because God called us to do it and people said yes. But not just are people being fed physically, they’re being fed spiritually. People are being prayed with and for and the gospel is being shared. There’s a lady that showed up here Friday who’s been on the street and hooked on drugs and got connected with one of our members and is now trying to get in rehab because people at this church said yes. I’ve seen classes started that have brought people in who were not previously involved and now they’re involved and they’re connected with other people and they’re learning and they’re growing because despite the time commitment, there are people in this church who said yes.
Folks, we have a school in this building where children are learning about Jesus five days a week because this church said yes. And I’ll tell you, as a result of the church saying yes to that, we have a growing youth ministry that is in large part due to that partnership. and youth can be trouble. I know I’ve got some of them at my house.
But there are kids coming into our church on Wednesday night because they want to be discipled, because they want to participate in missions. That’s going on because people in this church said yes. We have children’s ministry that as far as I’m concerned is one of the hardest places you could work. and you see them up here, you see them able to recite scripture. Abigail has not stopped singing hymns all weekend.
Kids’ lives are being changed. Families’ lives are being changed because people in this church say yes. I’m going to embarrass her because she’s not here so she can’t get mad at me. I talked to Larray at the pregnancy center. on Monday.
And she told me a story about a lady who came in who had been a patient, a client there five years ago at a time when Miss Janie Brown wasn’t sure about her role and whether she should continue being a client advocate. That lady came in, abortion determined. After talking with Janie, after praying with Janie, she decided to save and keep her baby. and she and her husband are now in ministry because Janie Brown said yes.
If you’re a guest with us today, I don’t want you to think that this is a… I’ve seen churches where the pastor gets teary-eyed and it’s an emotional manipulation tactic. That’s… I don’t remember if I’ve ever wept from the pulpit before.
But God has been on me all week about this passage and the people who are saying yes and the people in our own congregation who are saying yes. And every time we say yes when he calls us to do something, God moves and God works. And what I’ve wrestled with and what I hope our congregation will wrestle with is that if God moves every time we say yes, why in the world would we ever not say yes? what is it that he’s calling you to do today? What is it that he’s been calling you to do for a while?
Where the answer has been, well, Lord, I don’t know if I can afford it. Lord, I don’t know if I’ve got time to take on one more thing. That’s my issue. What is somebody going to think if I do this? What are they going to say?
Are they going to like it? Why in the world would we not say yes? we’ve seen how he works when we do don’t you want more of that we want to see God work more I think sometimes the reason he doesn’t is because we shut that door he tells us in verse 33 that a disciple renounces all that he has for Jesus he said if none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. He’s not saying here that they had to be penniless and live by begging. There were some people, specific people in the Gospels that he told to give away everything and go be poor.
That wasn’t a blanket command for everybody. This is a matter of what we’re willing to give up for his sake. To give up, that word for giving up means to just surrender, to lay it down at his feet. To remind ourselves that everything that we have is his. And again, if you’re new, you may be thinking, well, here they go with the money.
I’m not even talking about your checkbook. That’s part of it, but that’s a small part of it. Your possessions are anything you hold on to that keeps you from saying yes to the Lord. It can be money, it can be stuff, it can be a position, it can be influence, it can be power, whatever it is that we hold on to that keeps us from saying yes to the Lord. It tells us that we cannot be His disciple if we’re not willing to give that up.
This is about surrendering to Him, no conditions, just saying yes to Him. And finally, we see that a disciple remains useful to the Master. He talks about salt here. He said, salt is good, but even salt has become tasteless. With what will it be seasoned?
That’s true. You can add flavor to a dish with salt, but what if the salt doesn’t have any flavor? What can you add to salt to make it salty? There’s nothing. That salt becomes useless.
They had salt in their time from the Dead Sea that would lose its potency, And really the only thing it was good for was to be thrown on the paths to keep vegetation down or manure pile. But he says salt can become useless for either of those things. It just has to be thrown out. It has to be discarded. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
That’s a clue to the listener that Jesus is not really talking about salt. He’s talking about us.
When we say, no, Lord, no, Lord, no, Lord, no, Lord, we are that salt that loses its saltiness. And when we do that, we become useless in his service.
If we don’t want to be corrupted like that salt, if we don’t want to be worthless in his service, we have to say yes. And I suspect that I’m not alone here. I suspect that many people in this room have something that, as I’m talking about, what have you not said yes to that the Lord has already brought something to mind? You don’t have to tell me what that is. You know and the Lord knows.
My prayer is that today you’ll finally let go of all the things that have been standing in your way and tell him yes. And if you’re in a place in your heart and mind where you still just can’t bring yourself to do it, then pray that He would make you willing. Pray that He would change that. We don’t want to be like the salt that has lost its savor. Before I end, I want to be very clear.
about one thing, that none of this is talk about it being difficult to be saved. Earlier in chapter 14, we saw this open invitation where he’s talking about us being in the kingdom. He has made it very easy, or very simple, I should say, to get to the kingdom. We come to Him through Jesus Christ. We accept that invitation.
I believe this is talking about being fruitful and being useful in His service, being the disciple, that as we’re saved, we’re not saved just to remain as baby Christians. We’re not made to just sit there and wait for heaven. We’re meant to serve Him and be His disciple.
This is talking about the next step. But I don’t want anybody to be confused and think, well, I’ve got to do all of these things in order to have a relationship with God. No, it is as simple as understanding that our sin has separated us from God and believing that Jesus Christ paid for our sin in full so that we could be forgiven. And this morning, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, don’t start with all of this.
The relationship starts with acknowledging your sin and asking for forgiveness, believing that Jesus paid for your sin in full on the cross. But what we’re talking about today is where the relationship goes. What’s expected of us as we walk with him? And to use the terminology that the folks at NAMB have used all week, it’s about us putting our yes on the table.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download