our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray with me. Guide us, O God, by your word and spirit, so that in your light we may see light, in your truth find wisdom, and in your will discover peace. Add your blessing to the reading and the hearing and the preaching of your word, and grant us all the grace to trust and obey you. And all God's people said. Amen. Be seated. All right, kids, it's been a few weeks since we've talked, so you might be a little rusty, but how many of you, as God's children, know that it's your job to obey your parents? Nate, you got some work to do. Now, you older kids, teenagers and adults included, how many of you know it's your job to honor your parents, no matter how old you are? I hope everyone raised their hands, at least in your hearts if you're Reformed. God's Word from cover to cover is clear that children are commanded to obey their parents, and no matter how old any of us gets, we are all commanded to honor our parents. God's Word is also clear that husbands are to love their wives and even be willing to give up their lives for them. Parents are to love their children and to train them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And God's people are even commanded by Jesus to love our enemies, which must even include loving our brothers and sisters. And so if all that is true, and we know that it is, then what in the world was Jesus talking about when he said in our gospel lesson, that if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and yes, even his own life, that person cannot be my disciple. Well, I think we all know what Jesus is saying, or at least what he's not saying, but before we jump straight to minimizing Jesus's words, we need to let them sink in a bit. To do that, we're gonna need to retrace some of what's been going on to this point, not just in Jesus's time, but in Luke's, to help us make sense of how Jesus could say something so drastic, and why we must be willing to do the same if we are going to follow in his footsteps as a faithful church. Now, Luke and Paul could have chosen to follow Matthew's slightly gentler, whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, but they didn't, and for good reason. Remember, when we're reading a gospel, we are not just reading it through the lens of the people in the story when it happened. We're reading it through the lens of the author's current situation and reason for writing. Now, it's been several weeks since we've mentioned it, and everyone in my family failed the test, and so we're going to do a little recap of what we've covered so far, not just in Jesus's time, but in Luke and Paul's. In all likelihood, based on what we see in Acts and the earliest letters of the New Testament, Just after Jesus' ascension in 30 A.D. or A.D. 30 if we're being proper, Matthew and the Apostle James partnered together to write the first gospel to emphasize to a primarily Jewish audience that Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah. and they chose stories and phrases and images that emphasized him being the true Israel and the prophet greater than Moses that everyone had been waiting so long for. Okay, who partnered with Matthew to write the Gospel of Matthew? I just said it five seconds ago. Okay, good. You're like my family, no one listens to me. Matthew closes his gospel with Jesus's words we heard just a few minutes ago. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I've commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Now the apostles knew they would suffer and might even die because Jesus told them they would. But they felt a great deal of tension between Jesus's declaration of authority and promise to be with them until the end of the age, and their experience as his followers, because even within the first year after his ascension, they were already getting beaten, thrown out of the synagogues, arrested, and killed for their allegiance to Jesus. And so after about 10 years or so of increasing persecution, which led them to being dispersed from their homes, the same apostle, James, was martyred by Herod. And the apostle Peter only narrowly escaped a similar fate because of God's miraculous intervention. And so understandably, the people were shaken. They know Jesus claimed to have authority in heaven and on earth, and he said he was going to come back and vindicate his people, but Herod and the Jews were proving to be really powerful, terrifying enemies. So as we see in Acts 12, Peter partners with John Mark to write a second gospel where they select particular sayings and actions and phrases of Jesus, but highlight he's not only greater than Moses, but he's even greater than David, the mighty warrior, who partnered with Peter to write Mark's gospel. Okay, good, I was just making that one a little easier for you, because you blew the first one. All right, time and again in Mark's gospel, Jesus shows his power. He is portrayed defeating Satan and sin and darkness and death because Peter wants the people to be reminded that even though their enemies seem powerful, Jesus will emerge victorious and crush their heads. And yet, 10 or 15 more years go by. And on the surface, things don't seem to be getting much better. Now sure, the gospel had spread to the Gentiles by now, which was great. And the man who had begun the persecutions all those years ago had converted and become an apostle and planted churches all throughout Asia Minor. But now, that apostle was in prison. And it looked like he might just be the next apostle to suffer death at the hands of Jesus' enemies. The Jews are only increasingly rejecting Christ, and now the Gentiles are beginning to have doubts. And so, a wealthy Gentile, Theophilus, commissions Luke to investigate the various claims about Jesus that were going around, and then to report back onto whether everything he was hearing was true. And so, Luke partners with Paul, good job, not Theophilus. I guess technically it could be Theophilus, but that wasn't what I was hoping. We'll do it again soon, don't worry. So Luke, while there is still time, partners with Paul, and they craft a third gospel, reiterating that Jesus really was who his followers claimed him to be, not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles. And so even though it had been about 25 or 30 years by now since Jesus' ascension, all the God lovers could be certain that the Jesus they had pledged their lives to was the King of Jubilee. He was the King who had indeed promised to come and set captives free, to preach good news to the poor, and to liberate those who were suffering under violent oppressors. And so the persecutions and the trials and the lost loved ones that the Jesus followers were experiencing was no indication that they were following the wrong Jesus, but in fact evidence to the contrary. Jesus had made it clear throughout his ministry that any and everyone who wanted to be his disciple must not think following him would be easy. Jesus was not unclear about the requirements and difficulties that would come with following him. Now, as we've seen throughout, he would have made a terrible church growth strategist. Just about every time a crowd gathers, Jesus says something offensive to make sure that everyone knows where they must stand if they would stand with Jesus. Luke makes it clear, Jesus is not interested in soft discipleship. He was clear up front that following Jesus was going to be the hardest thing any of them could ever do, because Jesus didn't want them to get all excited, only to have them fall away if and when times got hard, because they were going to get hard. Now, as we see throughout the New Testament, and all the way into the epistles, and even now, people have come to Jesus for all sorts of reason, and they have and still do fall away when things get hard. But it's not because Jesus wasn't honest about what following him would look like. In Luke 9, Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let that person deny himself take up his cross every day and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. A little later, someone came up to him and professed to want to follow him, and Jesus warned him, saying, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. To another who said he wanted to follow Jesus but first had to bury his father, Jesus said, let the dead bury their own dead. To another who wanted to say goodbye to his family first, Jesus said, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. He tells his own friends not to fear anyone, but to still fear God, because God has the authority not just to kill them, but to kill them and then throw them into hell forever if they turn away. Jesus curses entire towns and tells the Pharisees and lawyers and scribes he's going to destroy them for rejecting him and his preachers. He says that he came to cast down fire on the land, and he wished the kindling was already started. And people seem shocked. Jesus asked the rhetorical question, do you think I came to bring peace on the land? No. I tell you, division. From now on, in one house, there will be five divided. three against two, two against three. They're going to be divided. Father against son and son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. He calls the crowds following him a bunch of hypocrites. And he responds to a local tragedy where a tower fell and 18 men, men likely with wives and children depending on them, do you think they were worse than you? Nope. If you don't repent, you, like them, are going to perish. Those are just a few almost direct quotes from Jesus being anything but gentle and lowly. Now, Jesus is gentle and lowly, absolutely. But the same Jesus who refuses to break a bruised reed is the same Jesus who rules the nations with a rod of iron. He's a good lion, as a wise man once said, but he's not safe, at least not in the way people portray him nowadays. We live in an age, even a church age, that thinks that the church should only preach certain attributes of Jesus, namely the nice ones. In the so-called desire to love our neighbors and to bring them to Jesus with a supposed gospel, the church shies away from talking like the Jesus in the actual gospels, avoids singing the psalms of Jesus, at least the imprecatory ones. avoids hurting anyone's feelings lest they get offended by Jesus. But that's not how Jesus approached his own ministry. Now, we have to be careful here, particularly those of us in the CREC who recognize the shortcomings of the broader church and what got us to where we are as a society. Even in our righteous indignation, we must be careful to obey the same Paul who helped Luke write this gospel. We must not use Christ to disobey the spirit of Christ who inspired the command, put away all wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouths. And at the same time, As we're fighting our own tendency to be loose with our tongues, we must recognize that Jesus and the apostles said a lot of things that upset not mainly Roman pagans, but nominally religious people who claim to be God followers. Now, if we follow biblical history, this isn't new, is it? A faithful person trying to be faithful, telling the truth in no uncertain terms and sometimes graphic ones about the false worship and idolatry among God's people. And then getting turned on and killed by the very same people they're trying to save. It's a story almost as old as time. Remember, it was Cain who killed Abel. because he thought he should be able to worship Yahweh however he wanted and not how God commanded. It wasn't the Amorites who had the prophet Isaiah sawed in two. It was the Israelite king. It was King Zedekiah's men who had Jeremiah thrown into the cistern for not seeking the good of the people. And it was God's own people who murdered Zechariah, son of Berekiah, in church And so it shouldn't be a surprise to us who are trying to call our brothers and sisters to repent of their nominalism, when the people most upset and most offended are not the pagans, but those same brothers and sisters in mainline and Big Eva churches. Now again, we must be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, because we're not Jesus. and we might cross a line here and there, but we must also not shrink back simply because the religious masses don't like what we're saying. Jesus and all of the other prophets and apostles used salty language without violating the command to let their speech be gracious and seasoned with salt. Sometimes loving God more than man and unapologetically speaking, the truth in love sounds like hate, which is the very thing Jesus compares what our devotion to him versus everyone else must look like. As those who would be wise, we must follow in his footsteps even when cowards and bullies don't like it. Jesus does not play games with eternity. Preachers refusing to flavor their sermons with salt and instead lisping soft serve laced with estrogen is part of why the church is so unable to stand against any hardship. We absolutely can and should extend the promises of the gospel for suffering sinners, but we have to be honest with them. If they're suffering now, Christ can heal them, and he can make sense of their suffering, but that doesn't mean they'll never suffer again, especially in this life. If anyone wants to follow Jesus, At least if they want to follow the Jesus in the gospels, the Jesus who is Lord of heaven and earth, it must be on his terms, and his terms are all or nothing. His terms are that your love and devotion to him must make every affection and commitment look like hate in comparison. Hard words. but necessary and good and loving words for anyone who desires eternal life. That's what Jesus is getting at. Now I know there are some of you here who have recently begun following Christ. And you're finding it quite difficult, even more difficult than we told you it was going to be. But these passages should comfort you. They should give you strength. You've started to lose friends. You've started to lose family. It might even feel like you're losing bits of yourself. Well, if so, and you're growing closer to Christ and more faithful, don't lose heart. You're on the right track. I also know there are several of you here who are on the fence as to whether or not you're ready to submit to Jesus as Lord and Master. You've met with Britain or me and you're just not sure. You're counting the cost as you should. You've heard that Jesus is a good teacher. You're intrigued by what you see when you hang around with us, but then, You see or hear Jesus say extreme things like you must hate your family and even your own life if you want to follow him and you're wondering what kind of good teacher says stuff like that. Well the answer is no good teacher would say anything like that. No good teacher would say you must hate your father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters compared to your devotion to me Unless that teacher was Lord of creation. Unless that teacher bears the only name under heaven by which any man, woman, or child can be saved, well then now that's a good teacher. And so as you're considering following him for the first time, or if you're feeling tired or nervous that following Jesus might be costing you too much, be exhorted by these next two mini parables he gives to explain to the crowds what the math looks like. There are basically two questions you need to ask. Can you afford to follow Jesus? And can you afford not to? In verse 28 through 30, Jesus gives the example of a man who at least has enough money and land to contemplate building a tower, and the foresight to consider what that project would cost. Obviously, only a fool wouldn't count the cost, begin a project like that, and lay the foundation only to run out of money and become a laughing stock to those around him. The takeaway for the crowd is, If you say you want to follow me, you have to go in with your eyes wide open. Following me may well cost you your relationship with your parents, with your spouse, with your children, all your friends, and it might cost you even your own life. Are you sure? You only have one life to give. Are you willing to give it? Can you afford the price that might be required of you? Because if not, if you're not willing to finish the race, don't get started. Because if and when it feels like the price is too high, you will not be willing to pay it. And you'll always be known as the guy or girl that used to follow that Jesus guy. How embarrassed you must be. Following Jesus from start to finish will cost you every minute of every day for the rest of your life. Are you willing to pay the price? Can you afford it? That's the first implied question to Jesus' mini parable, but then there's a second. Can you afford not to? Verses 31 through 32, Jesus tells a story about a king who's about to go to war against another king. He asks, what kind of king doesn't first sit down and think about whether his 10,000 can go against the other king's 20,000 and win? Well now, maybe he can. Maybe his soldiers are such studs they can take on two to one odds. God's done more with less. But ordinarily, it would be foolish and lead to a senseless loss of life for that king not to at least sit down to consider whether or not he can afford to enter the fray. If he can't, well then the casualties are gonna be too great, then the only thing that king can do is send a delegation and make peace. Now, on the surface, this king, considering whether or not he has enough soldiers to go against a larger army, sounds like another version of, well, can you afford to follow me? To which the obvious answer is no. And in a sense, it's similar, given the reality that following King Jesus might cost these people not just their money, but their lives, and they must be willing to die. But in a greater sense, when you realize who the greater king in Luke's gospel is, Well then the question becomes not can you afford to come to Jesus, but can you afford not to make peace with him? In a few short verses, Jesus has laid down the terms of discipleship for his audience. Where is your ultimate allegiance going to be? Will you choose your family or me? Will you choose holding on to your life or will you be willing to lose it? In context, will you choose to worship Herod and the temple that he's beginning or would you give up your lives to be Jesus's temple and his living stones? Will you be intimidated by the Jewish thugs and go AWOL or will you embrace martyrdom and join the heavenly host that would come back and leave those armies in ruin? You see, Jesus is closing with veiled shots at the authorities that begin with a summary for the crowds in 38. So therefore, anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Another way of translating that is any one of you who does not renounce or forsake or give up everything he has is not able or does not have the power to be my disciple. The Greek word for renounce is apataso, which is not coincidentally dissimilar to apostasis. And alphabetically, just prior to apotaleo, which means bring to completion. Now, if you didn't remember who partnered with the Gospels, don't worry about remembering those words. Just remember these principles. If you do not renounce everything for Christ, you will not be able to finish the course, you will apostatize. As soon as the cost is too high, as soon as that one person you just can't afford to lose, as soon as the evangelical fish scream loud enough, As soon as it looks like Kamala or Trump will give you a red kingdom that will satisfy you, as soon as we call you out on your sin and echo Jesus' command for you to pick your cross back up and follow him, gone. The price is too high. Having departed the faith, your latter state will be worse than the first. Having come to Christ thinking it wasn't going to be that hard, you'll leave him. Though he told you it was going to be hard, called you to forsake everything, and promised to never leave you or forsake you, you'll forsake him. And you'll join the rest of the crowds who started the journey but didn't complete it because they didn't count the cost. And you'll turn against those Christians who take their religion too seriously. You might even be willing to kill them one day. Beloved, will you count the cost? Will you continue to count the cost? Can you afford to? Can you afford not to? These questions are the questions that everyone has always faced when confronted with whether or not to follow the Lord into the promised land. In our Old Testament lesson, the people had to decide Would they count the cost and go conquer the promised land? Even if it meant going up against foes that looked like giants? Or would they be like their forefathers and cower in fear only to lose their life anyway and perish in the wilderness? They could trust God and choose life even it looked like they'd die, or they could walk by sight, choose life, and lose it. Likewise, in Jesus' day, he's setting himself up and saying, you have to choose. Would they trust Christ and choose life even if it meant they would lose everything? Or would they walk by sight, choose life, and die? These are the choices we have before us and that you have before you. Will you follow us as we follow Paul as he followed Christ and count everything loss, even your good things for the sake of knowing Christ? Will you be willing to suffer the loss of all things and indeed count them as rubbish in order to gain Christ and be found in him? Will you share in his sufferings and become like him in his death so that by any means possible, you might attain to the resurrection of the dead? Will you continue to give your entire life to Christ, not keeping a single square inch from him? If not, then as we've said, you'll turn away, but if so, If you're willing to let your love for Christ make it look like you hate everything and everyone else, if you're willing to give up every other love and lose every ounce of life and comfort if it means that you get Christ, well, now you're ready. Now you're ready to love in all the ways Jesus commands, even if other people hate you for it. You see the gift Jesus is giving us by calling us to such extreme devotion. If you love Jesus more than anything or anyone else, well then there's nothing positive or negative anyone can do to you that would be a sufficient reason for you to be unfaithful. If you love Jesus infinitely more than your wife, Well then when she disrespects you in public, you are not going to throw a fit on the way home because Christ demands you love her like he loved the church. And so nothing she can do gives you an excuse to do anything but be faithful to Jesus. If you love Jesus infinitely more than your husband, well then he, when he makes a decision, that you just know isn't as wise as the decision you told him he should make, you are not going to give into the temptation to wear him out about it. Because Christ says you are to submit to your husbands as unto him. And so you don't want to do anything but honor Jesus. If you love Jesus infinitely more than your children, you are not going to exasperate them by gently counting to three or 300. and you're not going to get harsh with them when they've finally gotten on your last nerve. No, you'll discipline them early and often, even when they don't fully understand it or like it, because you love Jesus's commands more than your kids or your in-laws' approval. You see how it works? As long as you love anything else remotely close to how you love Jesus, you will always be able to make excuses for disobedience. But if and when you love Jesus, more than anything or anyone, you can be free to love God and neighbor in all the ways he's commanded you, even if they hate you for it, like they hated him before. for his glory in the life of the world. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we've heard wonderful things out of your word. We praise you for revealing Christ by promise and shadow in the Old Testament and for revealing him as the fulfillment of all these things in the new. Give us your spirit so that we might understand these words and the fullness of your truth as you have revealed him to us in the person and work of Jesus, who with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory now and forever. Amen. Our communion homily was going to be from Leviticus 2. And we were going to trace out Jesus' use of the metaphor of salt as an allusion to the covenant of salt. how historic orders of worship have been laid out, including bringing salt with our tithes and offerings, and then conclude with our call as the Church to be salt to keep our world from rotting. As you can imagine, I was having a hard time getting all of that into about three to five minutes. And Rachel got a text message from Elise Warner this morning that reminded her of this passage and a similar one in Matthew 19. So I'm still charismatic enough to pivot, yes, mere hours before the service and change our communion meditation to Matthew chapter 19, verse 29. Everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my namesake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life in this life and the life to come. Now we mentioned that Luke's audience likely already had Matthew's gospel. And the promise that Jesus gave that whoever has left houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or their home for his sake would receive a hundredfold the same back. But Jesus's, or excuse me, Matthew's gospel had been circulating for over 20 years at this point. And in Matthew's gospel, all Jesus said in our comparative text was, as we had mentioned, whoever loves father or mother or son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And so as you can imagine, it would have been easy for people to say, well, I don't love these people more than Jesus, but I do love them. And so I don't have to leave Jesus and lose everything as long as I love Jesus more. I have faith and hope and love, and therefore I don't have to obey or something like that. And so Luke, by using this Hebrew idiom, you must hate, makes clear there may come a time when you have to choose not between love and hate, but between two objects of your love. And your devotion to your first love, Jesus, must make your devotion to any other love look like hate, even though you still really love them. Many of you have found this to be true, not just because your decision to follow Christ in faithfulness has cost you relationships with unbelieving family and friends, but because your faithfulness to Christ in one area has cost you, even with believing family members who you still love and who will still be with you in heaven when it's all said and done. I mentioned our sister, Elise, who comes from a faithful family, the Hatcher family. Now, Dave and Kim Hatcher, if you know them, and many of you do, are two of the most godly people you'll ever meet. And so, even though it hurt them, and they knew it would cost Elise a great deal of pain and loss to be faithful to Christ and follow her husband all over the country, they told her she had to do that. And while it has cost them and her and Josiah a great deal of pain, they have been faithful. And now after many months that we've been praying for them and their loneliness in their new place away from all of their friends and family, they have begun to have a new home with a new family just like Jesus promised. Now I share that story of one family's faithfulness with you because some of us haven't had that experience when it comes to choosing the loyalty to Jesus over our loyalties to even believing family members. Perhaps it's moving across the country to follow your spouse as you follow Christ. Perhaps it's changing churches. Perhaps it's changing your theological views because you're convinced by scripture there's a better way to know God and his word and his world. And even though your family is faithful, they are upset. And they don't like it. And even though they hear Jesus's words today and you hear them, I want to encourage you, keep being faithful. Even if it means leaving this church. even if it means risking the loss of the people you love here. Assure all of your loved ones of your love for them every step of the way, but always follow Christ and obey his word no matter what. And in your pain, and in your sadness, and even in your loneliness, when you come to the Lord's table at whatever faithful church you're at, always look around and look with eyes to see. Let the table, let the bread, let the wine be signs and seals of Christ's love for and devotion to you. As you pass the little piece of bread, hear a brother or sister tell you, the peace of Christ be with you. As you share a wannabe glass of wine with the words, the blood of Christ shed for your sins, open your ears and hear with the ears of faith, Even today, look around. Even today, see Christ's promise to never leave you or forsake you, but to give you a family a hundredfold, over and over, now and forever. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.