Faithful to the End [1-25-26]

January 25, 2026

Luke 14:25-35

“Faithful to the End”

Let’s begin with the big picture. It’s a guiding principle to all of chapter fourteen that you might want to write down:

JESUS INVITES ALL TO ACCEPT GOD’S GRACE, BUT WITH GRACE COMES DEMAND.

In light of that, we now turn to the challenges verses of Luke 14:25-35:

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 and 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, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a 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 ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 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 salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Right off the bat, we see where the challenge comes in. There are large crowds following Jesus. Luke has already told us some are following Jesus because they see something special in him. There’s an attractiveness to his messages and healings. They sense something big is about to happen. You’ve heard of FOMO, right? “The Fear of Missing Out.” That’s part of what’s motivating the large crowds.

We can hear that in the very word Luke uses. In, “The great crowds accompanied him,” accompany means literally going along with. You can hear the difference between that and following as a disciple, which Luke uses in other passages. I love how one of my favorite preachers puts it:

“Is this march to Jerusalem a parade? The crowds must think so; everyone loves a parade.”

Fred Craddock, 1928-2015

But this parade will not end in fun, games, rides, and comfort food. Remember the trajectory. Remember Jesus has set his face for Jerusalem. Remember what looms large there…the cross. So Jesus speaks challenging words to the large crowds.

The next verse is where Jesus is direct and to the point. We’ve already seen, back in chapter six, where Jesus tells his disciples to love their enemies. Now he’s saying to hate their family. And even their own life. What gives?

The hyperbolic point is quite understandable. I love hyperbole. I trust you do, too. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.” “She’s as dumb as a box of rocks.” Hyperbole is a great communication device. Jesus uses it often. It’s what’s going on here in verse twenty-six. “Hating” one thing over another expresses preference for another over another. So, whoever the Lions are playing, when I say I hate the other team, I don’t literally mean it. I’m not a monster. It simply means I prefer the Lions.

Here's something else you might want to write down:

LOVE FOR JESUS MUST TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER ALL OTHER LOVES.

In these two verses, Jesus establishes the standards for following him. He has already talked about true repentance. He describes for us saving faith and the narrow door. The way to salvation is not easy. As Jesus says in Matthew 22, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” After one of his more difficult sayings, Jesus is asked, “Who then can be saved?” To which he replies, “With man, it is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.” Thank you, Jesus, for that affirmation.

We need to hear about the cost of discipleship. We live in a time when

pastors and teachers want to devise a message that is easy to receive…

easy to accept…and easy to believe. This is not what Jesus does.

A few years back, pastor and preacher John MacArthur wrote a book on an unfortunate trend in the church. It was a reflection surrounding these verses about the cost of discipleship. It covered the movement toward the church adopting marketing and merchandising tools for growth and influence.

Here's how MacArthur captured it:

“The first role of successful merchandising is to give consumers what they want. If they want bigger burgers, make their burgers bigger. Designer bottled water in six fruit flavors? Done. Minivans with ten cup-holders? Give ‘em 20. You’ve got to keep the customer satisfied. You’ve got to modify your product and your message to meet their needs if you want to build a market and get ahead of the competition. Today, this same consumer mindset has invaded Christianity. The church service is too long, you say. We’ll shorten it. One pastor guarantees his sermons will never last more than seven minutes. Too formal? Wear your sweat suit. Too boring. Wait till you her our band. If the message is too confrontational or too judgmental or too exclusive, scary, unbelievable, hard to understand or too much of anything else for your tastes, churches everywhere are eager to adjust the message to make you more comfortable…we’ll get rid of moral absolutes and accountability. Churches promise informal, relaxed, casual atmosphere. One church pushed themselves as a fun church. It’s Christianity for consumers. Christianity lite. Watering down. Misinterpretation of the Bible to make it more palatable and popular. It tastes great. It settles light. It panders to your feelings and scratches your itch.”

Since MacArthur wrote that, it has gotten more prevalent. Churches attract with fun and games. The have become family entertainment centers. They have sermon series based on the popular movies at the time. They purchase canned sermon themes that are pushed as engaging and attracting. The pressure is there to always reach for bigger and better. It’s easy to be afraid of losing your appeal. I remember once, many years ago, as Easter was fast approaching, someone, knowing the church would be full, asked me how I was going to help make sure they returned the next

Sunday. The crowd becomes all-important.

Yet here comes Jesus, saying, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” What would it be like if prosperity preachers and slick marketers focused on that?

Jesus says you’re either in or you’re out. The cross metaphor could not make that any more clearer. The cross is a tool of torture. It is for causing pain, suffering, and death. Following Jesus is costly. Even perhaps losing one’s life. Jesus is asking a big question. Are you willing to do what it takes to follow him?

Here's what’s really important for us to remember:

JESUS CHRIST IS THE SOVEREIGN OF THE UNIVERSE AND HE HAS A RIGHT TO BE ADORED AND WORSHIPED AND LOVED AND SERVED AND OBEYED.

Amen?

If you are to faithfully follow Jesus, then you must be willing to say good-

bye to your old worldview. Say goodbye to comforts, cares, perks, old beliefs, accomplishments, or a familiar way of life. As Jesus says in verse thirty-three, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciples.”

There are two key words here:

All that he has – the original Greek word is only used in the New Testament to denote earthly possessions. It’s all about the stuff we have, or more accurately, the stuff that has us.

Renounce – I love how one translation captures this Greek word – to say adieu. To say goodbye by dismissing or departing. It can also mean to make a decisive break.

However you translate them, these two words mean to let go for the sake of a greater allegiance to the will of God.

Which leads us to our final point.

Jesus says that following him demands abandonment of past priorities. In other words, following Jesus means doing things God’s way rather than your own way. If you’re going to follow Jesus, you definitely cannot go your own way. There will be sacrifices to make. There are going to be things you have to give up. There will be things you have to do without in order to further the mission of God. We’re seeing that as the people of Covenant Church are contributing generously to our balcony project. What God is doing in us and through us and for us comes first. Tough choices sometimes. But Jesus is in the place of preeminence in our lives.

Here's what that means. A personal example.

My wife has always been right-to-life. When I was in my early 20s, I was pro-choice. For all the virtue-signaling reasons. Women’s rights. It’s her body. It’s a difficult, very personal decision. Men don’t have a right to an opinion. Eventually, Lori’s patient witness and me finally allowing God’s Word to direct my heart and mind, led me to renounce my pro-abortion beliefs.

I had to hate who I once was in order to grow into the kind of man God created me to be. We must never compromise with a fallen and wicked

worldview. Regardless of how we have been raised. Regardless of how we want to be liked or affirmed by others. There is no going-along to get-along in following Jesus. We cannot soft-sell the demands of discipleship. Keeping up appearances…keeping down conflict…avoiding difficult truth in order to keep up attendance…these are not the ways of the gospel.

I love how MacArthur sums it up:

“Lightness will never fill you up with the true saving gospel of Jesus Christ because it’s designed by people, not God. It’s hollow and worthless. In fact, it’s worse than worthless because people who hear the message of Christianity light think they’re hearing the gospel, think they’re being rescued from eternal judgment when, in fact, they’re being tragically misled.”

Again, as Jesus says:

“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 bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”

Here’s what I want to leave you with.

Following these demands to their exacting limits would crush the spirit of anyone trying to fulfill them. Only Jesus perfectly fulfilled the will of his Heavenly Father. But just because we’re not perfect, and because we can’t live like monks sacrificing all worldly attachments for God Kingdom, doesn’t mean we should not attempt to reach. As Paul writes in Philippians 3:12-16:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

We all know the purpose of setting lofty goals. Paul moves us there in

Philippians 3. When the bar is set high, you work and train to achieve your goal. You press. You sacrifice. You strain. The higher the goal, the harder the work, the further you’ll reach.

That’s the huge takeaway from today’s passage. We live somewhere between being totally corrupted and absorbed by our culture and living like monks. We are to be transformed by the gospel. Regardless of the struggle, we’ll stick it out to the end. We put our confidence in God. And in the end, we will find growth in our walk with Jesus, and great things done in his name.

We close as Jesus closed. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “Listen to this message. If you understand it, embrace it. God is speaking. Jesus is speaking. Follow Jesus.”

And together, the people of Covenant Church say:

SOLI DEO GLORIA…

To the Glory of God Alone