Luke 14:25-33--The Cost of Discipleship

Luke 14:25-33
English Standard Version
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The Cost of Discipleship
25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “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. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

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We have changed scenes now and are no longer at the house of the Pharisee.  The crowds have started to follow after Jesus again, probably anticipating that something is going to happen soon, but most of those following are not really ready to pay the price to be a disciple of Jesus.  Jesus knows this and turns to the large crowd that's following Him and speaks some words that to this day cause confusion and controversy.

Jesus tells the people that anyone who comes after Him must hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his (or her) own life.  A person who is not willing to commit to this level is not worthy to be His disciple.  Is Jesus really telling them to hate people?  That doesn't seem consistent with what we know from other passages in the Bible that tell us to love God and love others.  If you are thinking this, you would be correct and you would be using good hermeneutics by using something that is clear in Scripture to help inform your understanding of something that is unclear.  Jesus is using hyperbole here, and while not the first time that He's used hyperbole, it definitely is one of the more extreme examples (another example would be the "if your eye causes you to sin, gauge it out" and "if your ear causes you to sin, cut if off" passage).  Our love for Jesus should have such supremacy that there is no other option but to love Him, even if that means that we are rejected by or have to reject our friends and families and even our own self-interests.  Everyone will be called on to make some kind of sacrifice like this.

Jesus then uses a parable to teach them about counting the cost of being a disciple.  Jesus relates this decision to a man that wants to build a tower and needs to sit down and calculate the money, time, and other resources it would take for him to complete the project and he should make this sort of accounting before he even begins so that he doesn't start the project unable or unwilling to finish it because the cost was too great.  Such a man would be the laughing stock of his community because the half-built tower would stand for all to see and memorialize the foolishness of such a man.  Some of you may know some real-life stories about this and can verify the veracity of Jesus' claims here.  Some of you may have been this person who set out to do something without sitting down to think about it and plan it out first and you were the one that everyone jeers at.  It's not an enjoyable place to be.

Jesus also relates this to a king going to war and he would send out scouts to verify the size and strength of the enemy's army while they were far away to decide if he only needs to send out a few troops, needs to send the whole of his military and call up any reserves as well, or if he should start talking about terms of peace or surrender because he is facing a superior foe and the cost of lives too great for him to justify the war.  What then is the meaning of this analogy to a king going to war?

There is a very real battle and no one is going to be allowed to remain neutral.  Jesus encourages us to see the judgment of God coming in the distance and to count that cost and while it is a long way off make a peace agreement with God by way the gospel, but in doing so, we must be willing to lose everything in the surrender--family, friends, wealth, career, dreams, ambitions, and more.  You may offer terms and conditions if you are the weaker army, but it is the one with the stronger army that really dictates the terms and God's terms are unconditional and total surrender.  We must give up everything if we want to enter into a peace agreement with Him that will make us citizens of His kingdom.

Jesus wants all those who are on the fence about becoming His disciples to sit down and count the cost and if you are unwilling to give up everything to follow Him, even your own life, then don't begin.  However, if you look in the face of the coming judgment and know there is no way that you can stand in the day of judgment and that you know you have to do anything and everything, no matter the cost, to guarantee that you will not lose your life along with everything else that belongs to you in that judgment, then you should urgently and immediately repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.  "For there is no other name under heave by which men must be saved."  There is no way for us to hold onto anything long term, the question is if we are willing to give up short term gratification for long-term benefits, or are we instead going to live for the here and now and spend an eternal life sentence in judgment?  That is the accounting that Jesus encourages us to do before we ever think about saying we belong to Him, because one day soon they will come after us in the same way that they came after Him, and there is no room for cowards or traitors in His kingdom.  If you recant when threatened with the loss of your own life, you never really belonged to Him to begin with and those who deny Christ before men will be denied by Christ before the Father in heaven (such people do not belong to Him and will no inherit eternal life or the kingdom of God).

Do you have this conversation with people that are considering becoming Christians?  If not, why not?  We don't see Jesus talk about it a lot, but it was on His mind as one of the most important things to tell the people before He went to the cross because they were going to come after all those who called themselves disciples, and Jesus didn't need a bunch of "in name only" disciples that were going to fall away because their faith wasn't for real.  The same is true to day, you have either completely, totally and unconditionally surrendered, or you have not.  Which is it?  You cannot have one foot in the kingdom of God and the other foot in the world.  It doesn't work that way.  You are either all-in or you are all out.  Make up your mind which it is because the day will come, like is going on right now with our brothers and sisters in Ukraine and in other areas around the world, when you will have to choose whether the gospel or your own life is more important to you.