Ye Cannot Be My Disciple

Well, thank you, ladies, for the beautiful special music. We like Michael Card, and that's one of our favorites. Really enjoy, all should I. Well, good afternoon. Those of you on this Cybercast forgot to say hello to you during the announcements, and happy Sabbath, brethren. We're going to start today by jumping over to Matthew 28 and verse 19. So if you'd go ahead and turn over there, we're just going to start right in by reading Matthew 28 and verse 19. You might recognize this particular passage sometimes colloquially referred to as the Great Commission. What's really interesting is the Great Commission is actually nowhere in the Bible, other than titles that have been added later. It was actually a phrase that was coined by a Dutch missionary and then really popularized by another Chinese missionary. But regardless, it's been known throughout history and has become known ultimately as the Great Commission. So in Matthew 28 verse 19, we see this particular passage sometime between Christ's resurrection and His ascension. And He talks to His disciples and really says, look, I'm going. You have a job to do. You've got something that you need to be doing while I'm gone. And this is what you need to be doing. Matthew 28, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 16, says, then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and He spoke to them, saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And then we reach verse 19, which we know is the Great Commission.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And so the disciples at this point in time, really, they're kind of given their marching orders. You know, He ascends not long after this conversation with His disciples, and they're by and large kind of in their minds, maybe on their own. Holy Spirit hadn't been fully poured out yet upon all the believers like it was on the day of Pentecost and Acts 2. And so they were told, go out, make disciples, go into all the nations and teach them to do the things that I've commanded you. Well, exactly what did that entail? What did it entail? Going around and making disciples of the nations. What did this act of making disciples look like? Well, as with most Gospel accounts, it's hard sometimes to fully ascertain the complete instructions without additional context. Okay, we can read this one passage and we could say, okay, cool, go out, make disciples. Okay, we can assume we know what that looks like. But there's other aspects in the Gospels that describe this more clearly. There are two parallel accounts, and that's the beauty of the harmony of the Gospels. There's two parallel accounts to this event, Luke 24 and Mark 16. And we'll go to both of them, Luke 24 and Mark 16, but we'll start with Luke 24. So if you go ahead and turn over to Luke 24 as we flesh out what you know, making disciples looks like.

Luke 24, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 36.

Luke 24 and verse 36. This is one of those passages where I believe Jesus had a sense of humor with this particular passage. It says, Now as they said these things, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, instead to them, peace to you. It's like he wasn't there before, and then, hey, there he is. And they got scared. Verse 37, they were terrified and frightened and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said to them, Why are you troubled? And why do you doubts or why do doubts arise in your hearts?

Behold my hands and my feet. He showed them the scars. Behold my hands and my feet. But while they still did not believe for joy and marveled, he said to them, Have you any food here? So they gave him a piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb, and he took it, and he ate in their presence. Verse 44, Then he said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.

Verse 45, he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then he said to them, verse 46, Thus it's written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.

Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you. But, notice he gives them a very specific instruction, tarry in the city of Jerusalem, until you are imbued with power from on high. So he tells him, look, wait in Jerusalem when this is done. Something big is going to happen. We know, as we read through the book of Acts, we see that next too. We see the pouring out of God's Holy Spirit upon the believers gathered at the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. This was what they were told to wait for.

Okay, let's go to Mark 16. We'll get a little more detail in this to give us a little bit better understanding of what exactly making disciples looks like. By putting all of the accounts together, we can have a much fuller understanding. Mark 16, and we'll pick it up in verse 14. Mark 16 and verse 14, under again a heading in here that says, the Great Commission, says, Later he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table, and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

And he said to them, Go into all the world, or go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. And we see all of these things represented throughout the New Testament in various places.

The God Spirit gave wonders and signs to these individuals who had been imbued with it, and they had the ability to speak in tongues of languages they didn't know. But they could be interpreted, they could be understood.

Some of you may be aware of rattlesnake churches these days, where they like whole rattlesnake. This is because of this, because they believe that that Holy Spirit gives them the ability to not be bitten and killed, essentially, by the rattlesnake venom. So they'll take up serpents, and they won't drink anything deadly. So if we put all three of these gospel accounts together, we can kind of piece together what the Great Commission entails.

To make disciples of all the nations, Christ desired His disciples to travel throughout the world, starting in Jerusalem and working their way outward, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God as they went. Specifically, teaching and preaching repentance and remission of sins in Christ's name, baptizing individuals who believed, and not stopping there, not just stopping at baptism and saying, okay, you believed, you said this small prayer, congratulations like Mr. Miller was talking about, you're set, you're in, that's all you have to do. He said, no.

Teaching them to then observe what Christ commanded them, to live accordingly. Those who believed and were baptized would receive the Holy Spirit. They would be granted certain signs and wonders as a result of that spirit working in their lives. This movement would start in Jerusalem, but then it would pour out and move further and begin to, as it says in the book of Acts, eventually turn the world upside down.

It grew rapidly. It grew very rapidly throughout the book of Acts. Disciples as they went, as they traveled around those dusty roads of Judea and on through, you know, the Mediterranean, they were to make disciples as they went.

Were they to make disciples of themselves? You know, I'm a disciple of Paul, I'm a disciple of Apollo. No. They were to make disciples of Jesus Christ. In everything that they did and in everything that they said to people, these new converts, these new believers, they were to turn new believers to Jesus Christ, who was their rabbi. If you take a look at the Greek word for disciple, if you look at the Greek word for disciple, it's math-meth-et-es. It's math-et-es. The root word is math. Everybody hates math, but the root word is there for a reason, because the root word math, I see a couple kids going, I do not hate math. Good. Good for you guys. That's awesome.

The root for math means scholar. It means learner. It means pupil. It means scholar, learner, and pupil. And really, essentially, at its core in the Greek, a disciple is someone who learns from someone else. Okay? Pretty simple. It's kind of a student. But in Jewish culture, a disciple meant something so much more. In Jewish culture, in Judea, during the time of Christ, it was really largely recognized by the people that the law of God had authority over their lives. You were not looking at necessarily a famine of the Scripture. By the age of 13, young men had Scripture practically memorized by the time of their bemitzvah. And so it wasn't so much about what the word of God specifically said. It had a lot more to do with what the word of God meant. What was its application? What was its interpretation? And so interpreting the law at that point in time was by and large left up to a rabbi. It was left up to somebody who had the authority and the knowledge to interpret the law of God into those application questions of life.

Rabbi, can I light a candle on the Sabbath? How many candles can I light on the Sabbath?

These sorts of application-style questions. And the rabbi would answer, and ultimately, young men would seek out rabbis that they could then learn from. They would seek out men that they could follow and learn from. And they would seek out these rabbis who would then expound on the law of God and provide them the answers to the application questions that they sought.

And when a young man found someone who interpreted the law in a way that they found appealing, they would seek to learn from that person. And sometimes it was as easy as saying, can I become your disciple? And the person said yes. Other times it was an incredibly rigorous and you had to be the best of the best of the best of the best to get with some of these extremely notable rabbis. Gamaliel, for example, was an extremely notable rabbi, the rabbi that Paul Saul of Tarsus studied under. He was the grandson of Hillel the Elder. He was a very notable rabbi. You had to compete to become a disciple of Gamaliel. You had to know your stuff. And that we know that Saul of Tarsus did. In fact, Paul talks about that discipleship a little bit in Acts 22. He tells people, I was brought up at Gamaliel's feet. Like I spent my childhood in my early adult years sitting and listening to Gamaliel tell me what the law meant so that I could interpret it and so that I could understand it. And he spent a number of years kind of sifting those crumbs of wisdom from Gamaliel as they fell from the table, so to speak. So the disciples' learners or pupils of these men ascribed to that rabbi's particular worldview. And they submitted themselves to that person's interpretation of the law. They willingly gave up their own thoughts. They willingly gave up their own interpretations. And they yielded their will to learn how to apply the law from that particular rabbi's teachings. They learned from their rabbi, sometimes imitating him.

Again, imitations is a sincerest form of flattery, right? They began over time to start talking like their rabbi. They would use similar lilts in their language. They would use similar mannerisms and certain characteristics. You know, it's jokingly been said that, you know, after you've lived with somebody for a long enough period of time, you all start looking like each other, right? And it's kind of like that with rabbis. You start to act like them. And my poor wife is in trouble after living together long enough. I'm sorry, by the way. But Paul, as a disciple of Gamaliel, would have exhibited aspects of Gamaliel's teachings and interpretations before he was converted on the road to Damascus, before he began to serve Jesus Christ. He would have exhibited teachings of Gamaliel, attitudes, thoughts, processes. He may have even talked a little bit like him. He may have even had some of the same mannerisms because he spent years with the man learning from him day in, day out about the law of God. When Christ came along, the Jews noticed Christ did things a little bit differently. The men who followed him weren't exactly cut out of the same cloth as some of the men that followed some of the other more notable rabbis. In fact, you know, Matthew was a tax collector. In Judah, in those days, you scrape the bottom of the barrel, and what's left is tax collectors. So it was a situation where, you know, this is somebody who never ever should have ever been brought to the point of working with someone as a rabbi. Andrew Peter, they were simple fishermen. Simple fishermen. And the other men that followed Christ were in similar situations. I personally think Christ sought to make a point with his choices. I think his point was, I can do an incredible work with imperfect and simple people, and it's more of a work than you can do with the best of the best of the best of the best. I think that was ultimately Christ's process. You know, there were people that came in here and started listening, and they decided, yeah, I don't really love this. But those that listened, those that stayed on, those that came on as Christ's disciples, as time went on, we see them going from these simple men to these New Testament pillars, the Johns and the Pauls and the Peters, and all the other unnamed disciples that did so many just incredible things behind the scenes and didn't get all the press and all the time written in the book.

Throughout his earthly ministry, Christ was asked a number of different times as to what his interpretation of the law was. It kind of seemed like in every corner somebody was asking him, you know, well, teacher, what do you say about this? Well, here's what I say about this. They go, boo, we don't like that. That happened a lot, and it was in a lot of places.

Some that he told things to accepted his teachings readily. Others, not so much. You think of the example of the rich young ruler, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Well, do these things.

Really easy, actually. Do these things. Oh, I can't do that. Well, okay. Then you can't do that. You know, the gentleman that wanted to say and wait until his father had passed away so he could bury his father. Another situation where, nope, I need to do this. I can't come with you. I can't do this. So his numbers kind of grew from 12 at the beginning to at 1.70, up to 120 on the day of Pentecost, just prior to the pouring out of God's Holy Spirit. And then it went up significantly from there after that particular event. So the Eclassia then began to grow. These people that had been called out by God and had accepted God's teachings and ultimately were baptized and received the Holy Spirit. And brethren, as part of that Eclassia, you and I find ourselves as modern-day disciples of Jesus Christ. You know, we are the recipients of that great commission on down the ages to today. We've been called by God. We've read, we've seen, and we ultimately agree with Jesus Christ's interpretation of the law of God, which we see outlined in Scripture. We've chosen to become his disciples, working, honestly, now in our lives, we're working to emulate his mannerisms, his actions, his characteristics, his manner of speech, his thoughts, his attitudes. We're trying to become more like our rabbi. As we live and as we go through this process longer with Jesus Christ in our life, we begin to become, if we're yielding ourselves to his Spirit, we begin to become more like him, just like anybody would have done as a disciple of a rabbi in those days. We've submitted our will and yielded ourselves to him. And it's not, we mentioned this before, it's not a one-time profession of faith. It's not a, it's not a believing, that's all it takes. Say this little prayer and you're in. Becoming a disciple is about a lifetime of growing closer to our God. You know, when we read Matthew 28-19, the Great Commission really is less about putting people in the seats and more about converting those people to become more like Jesus Christ. Go and make disciples. Don't just go and make believers. Go and make disciples. Go and make people who are going to turn around and say, yes, that's the life I want to lead. I'm in. I'm in. Give it to me. Teach me how to become like this rabbi. That's what the Great Commission is. Go out and make disciples. Make people who have bought in and will go forward.

He wanted willing followers, but in a number of places we also see that Jesus said, look, those of you that are going to follow me, there's certain requirements and there's certain conditions that are on that. One of these more notable places is in Luke 14, where he lists out three things that would specifically prevent someone from being his disciple. Let's go to Luke 14.

And as we turn over to Luke 14, it's important to recognize at this point in Jesus Christ's ministry, it's nearing the end of the three and a half years. He's actually on the road to Jerusalem at this point in time where he would ultimately be crucified and die. And so as we see the interactions as Luke 14 goes on, we see him getting closer to Jerusalem as he's talking to the multitudes as they're walking. You know, he's getting a chance to get some of these things in. But in Luke 14, verse 25, he turns around to address these great multitudes that followed him.

Turns around to address these just large bodies of people that follow him. And we don't see anything very specifically 100 percent, no shadow of a doubt as to exactly how many people are here. It could be two or ten thousand, you know, or more. We don't know. But we do know that at times it required a miracle of the loaves and the fishes to feed everybody. There was a grip of people. There were many. And so he turns to this great multitude and he says to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and his sisters, yes, in his own life also, he can't be my disciple.

Put yourself in the shoes of the people in the multitude at that point in time. Do you have a moment where you go, wait, what? We're supposed to honor our father and our mother. How do we rectify these two things? You know, it's really, truly, it's unclear as to how many were in the multitudes that really saw themselves as actual disciples. You know, anytime you've got large groups of people, there's some people who are just along for the ride. I mean, that's just the reality. You know, I've got students in my classroom that are there using up oxygen. You know, sweet kids, but they're there using up oxygen. In a situation like this, you're in a similar boat. You've got people that are there. You know, there's food, there's, you know, healings, there's all sorts of things.

You know, how many of these people were true, quote unquote, disciples? We don't really know.

But he goes on in verse 27 of Luke 14, after he says that anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, he asked in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So there's condition number two. Okay, you got to bear the cross and come after him. Verse 28, it says, for which of you, and this kind of connects in with 27 the next little bit, as he talks about counting the cost, for which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first to count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, lest after he's 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. You know, this is not modern day, because the internet comments are way worse than this man began to build and was not able to finish. So this is clear that this is pre-internet. Or what king going to make war against another king does not sit down first and consider whether he is able, with ten thousand, to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand. Verse 32, or else while the other is still a great way off, realizes that he's going to lose here. He sends a delegation and asks for conditions of peace. Kind of gets into this section of 28 to 32, like, don't start something you can't finish. Don't start something you can't finish.

So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has, condition three, cannot be.

My disciple. This particular passage is one that we visit when we counsel individuals for baptism in the modern era of the church today. This is the section where you talk about counting the cost.

But you know, as modern day disciples of Jesus Christ, when we start to approach the spring holy days each year, FYI Passover is a couple months away. It's coming up quick. Spring holy days is coming up fast. It's important that we take time to reflect back on that commitment that we've made, that covenant that we've made with God. We've signed on to become disciples of Jesus Christ.

And not only that, to then go forward and make disciples in his name.

So while we examine this particular passage in Luke 14 before baptism, honestly, it also behooves us to return to it occasionally to evaluate our own lives, to ensure we're not allowing anything to prevent us from following God as fully as possible.

Within this passage of Luke 14, three specific conditions are mentioned. Three specific things that Jesus Christ said, if A, B, or C are true, you cannot be my disciple.

And that is the title of the message today, ye cannot be my disciple. With the time we have left, we're going to explore these three things that Christ mentions in Luke 14 as we kind of consider our role as disciples of Jesus Christ today. The three things, just in a reminder form again in Luke 14, are three points. Christ stated that a person cannot be his disciple if, one, they do not love less by comparison, father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and their own life. Two, if they do not bear their cross and come after him. And three, if they do not forsake all that they have. So let's go ahead and take a look at point number one, loving less by comparison, one's family. You know, it's unfortunate that the word hate was used in this particular thing as a translation, because it's really not the appropriate translation of the Greek word.

What it really means is to love less by comparison. You take father and mother and you put them here. You take Jesus Christ here. And yes, you still love father and mother, but you love father and mother a little less than you love God. And that's the reality. It's love less by comparison. God is first, is essentially what this is telling us. So for us to really understand where this came from and why these three things were specifically chosen, we have to go back a little ways in Luke 14. So let's go up to Luke 14 verse 15. Luke 14 verse 15. We see the parable of the Great Supper. And ultimately what we see in the parable of the Great Supper is this huge wedding feast, essentially. This huge supper, this big banquet that has been thrown. And then ultimately, we see the master send out a bunch of people or send out invitations, quote unquote, to a bunch of people who then just turn them down left and right.

Verse 15. Now when one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Verse 16. And then he said to him, answers in a parable, a certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, come, for all things are now ready. So the invitations had gone out. Those individuals were told, hey, we're having this banquet. We want you to be there. You're a guest of honor. Please come. And then now he sent the servant out and he said, look, now it's ready. Go get him. Tell him that it's time. The meal has started. Bring him in.

Verse 18, but they all with one accord began to make excuses. Now I've not had everybody at a dinner party turn me down before, but I have asked middle schoolers to take out a piece of paper.

And the chorus of, I can imagine, is a little bit like this. Well, I don't have a pencil.

It's Tuesday. I don't have paper on Tuesdays. Okay. Well, awesome. All with one accord, the complaints and the excuses start. The complaints and excuses start. In this case, we see that there was quite the series of excuses given. The first said to him, I bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it. I ask you to please have me excused. Another said, I bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to test them and prove them. I asked you to please have me excused. And then still another said, I'd married a wife and therefore cannot come. So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Verse 21, the servant comes back and says, master, all these people that we've invited, they've all had some reason why they can't come. They've all had some kind of an excuse as to why they cannot be here.

The master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, go quickly into the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. The master said, I will fill this table. If not them, then somebody else. But this table will be filled.

And the servant said, master, it is done as you command it and still there is room. Almost like maybe he's asking, like, should we go ask the ones that weren't able to come before? Should we ask them if they want to come? Says the master said to the servant, go out into the highways and the hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper. You know, we understand the context of this particular parable today, but it was likely lost on the majority of those gathered at the time, as many of Christ's parables were. Many of Christ's parables were lost on the ears of those who heard them.

Christ was drawing attention here to the excuses that people made with regards to the calling that he provided. They had every reason in the world why they couldn't come. You know, this is like on today's vernacular, like, hey, do you want to go out? Oh, yeah, I'm shampooing my hair. You know, it's those kind of excuses where you're like, what? Well, you can do that another time. No, really, it's very important that I shampoo my hair exactly at that time. Well, it's kind of like this.

They had X, Y, or Z as an excuse. I bought this piece of ground. I have these yoke of oxen. I've married a wife. What's fascinating, though, these excuses that are given, some of them are legitimate excuses to avoid warfare as outlined in Deuteronomy 20. So in Deuteronomy 20, if a person had just married a woman and the nation had gone to war, they could say, I've just married a wife. I don't have to go. And they would send them home for the year to be with their wife before they had to go and fight again. And so there are legitimate excuses here. And some of these may have even had legal grounds to stand on. And that may have been the point that he was making here.

That legally they were strong enough legal ground to get people out of war should be enough to get somebody out of dinner.

Christ's point, though, to those gathered to hear this parable is, there's no such thing as a valid excuse. I don't care if you just got married. I don't care if you just got oxen. I don't care if you just bought a field. There is no valid excuse to miss this particular supper in this parable. Those that bagged out on this dinner missed out on their opportunity. And as we understand the the context of this particular parable, this parable is talking about the kingdom of God.

Those that bagged out missed out eternally. They did not get to come to the supper. That supper was filled. It wasn't filled with those of status. It was filled with the poor and the maimed and the blind. Brethren, it was filled with us. That invitation was offered to us, and we were brought into the potential of that table, into the potential of the kingdom of God. Those with status, those, you know, in that crowd of people surrounding Jesus Christ that had authority and and had, you know, important titles and things like that. Those that didn't believe and those that didn't respond missed out. If we don't respond to God's calling, not just even initially, not just the first response, but continually responding to God's calling as our life goes on and as we continue throughout our life, yielding ourselves, submitting our will, molding our actions, our speech, and our character to the example that's given to us by Jesus Christ, we too could well miss out. We too could well miss out. In fact, if you think about it, the existence of the multitudes and the fact that not all of them carried on to become true disciples is proof that it is entirely possible to be a follower of Jesus Christ and not a disciple. William Barkley states in his commentary on Luke 14, says, a person could be a camp follower without being a soldier of the king, a hanger on in some great work without pulling one's weight. And in an ensuing passage, if he goes on a little bit further, he tells another story of an old scholar who had a person approach him regarding a young man, and the person told the scholar, he said, I understand that so-and-so is one of your students. And the scholar's response was, he may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students. He may have been there. He may have sat in the seat, but he wasn't one of my students. And I, you know, as a teacher, I've taught now for a little over, boy, it's almost been 15 years. But I've had students sit in a class for an entire semester, an entire semester, they were there every day. They were there every day, because the ones that you don't want to be there, they're always there. It's true. They're always there. No, I'm kidding. But they're always there. They breathe the same air as everybody else. They heard the same exact things. They completed the same assignments. After they had the right answers! And when it was all said and done, they still didn't learn a thing. I don't quite know how that happens. I truly don't. You know, other kids learned leaps and bounds. I don't know what happened with this particular kid.

But I think sometimes that must be what Christ felt like with regards to some of the multitudes that followed. You've been here, you've been following, you've been eating the dust from this crowd for how long? And you still don't get it. You still don't get it. It didn't learn a thing. So with that context in mind, we get to Luke 14, 26. Luke 14, 26. If anyone comes to me and does not hate or love less by comparison, his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. You know, when it comes to the love that we need to have for God, it has to pale, or I'm sorry, the love that we have for other people has to pale in comparison to the love that we have for God. We cannot elevate our spouse, we cannot elevate our parents or our family, we can't elevate our children in a position that is above our love for God. God has to be number one. Everybody else can be a very close second, third, fourth, fifth, but God has to be number one. And even when it comes to our own lives, which is hard, because we are selfish, selfish people. Humans are selfish, we are, it's a survival mechanism. We think about what we need personally to make it, and we don't think about other people oftentimes. It takes conversion, it takes taking on the mind of God to really begin thinking about and loving other people in that way. But you know, in relationships, even sometimes when individuals like parents, for example, or our husbands or our wives begin to draw us away from God, we have to very carefully place boundaries on those relationships.

Throughout the history of the church, and I use that term not to say Church of God per se, but through the history of the church, the ecclesia, people, you know, from the beginning of time that have believed God, there have been individuals that have married outside of the faith. There have been individuals who have been involved with individuals that are not of the same belief system. And on very rare occasions, it works out. And that individual comes to the truth, or baptized, or converted, all is well. But more often than not, it becomes a situation that is never quite the degree of unity that God intended a married couple to achieve.

Marrying in the church, as you well know, is no guarantee of unity either. We know that.

But the relationship starts on a common foundation, and provided each person is yielding themselves and endeavoring to become a disciple, learning to love and to serve other people, it can, and it will be successful. You know, I've shared my backdrop with you guys a little bit. I grew up in a household where one person was in the church and the other was very firmly not in the church. My dad did not attend, and it was extremely difficult as a child. It really was.

During spring holy days, our home was never fully de-leavened. We had our leaven covered, because my dad refused to give up his ham sandwiches the week of days of 11 bread. Period. I want a ham sandwich. I'm not giving that up. I don't care what your church says. I'm not doing it. So we had our little leaven cabinet where dad could have his ham sandwiches and could have his bread. We had pork chops in the freezer, so when you grab that random white butcher package, you had to read it real careful and find out what it was before. We didn't talk about church at home, which it didn't, because it was a topic that tended to start arguments. I appreciate. I will say I appreciate my dad never went as far as saying, you absolutely cannot and will not attend church services. I'm so glad he never went there. He was fine with it. We were able to go, but he didn't care for it, but we were able to go. But I've heard stories over the years of individuals whose husbands have essentially said, you stop attending church. And they have. And when the husband dies, they come back. We cannot allow relationships to take the place of that relationship with God. You have to put personal boundaries on those things. And it may be a very careful and very fragile boundary, but there has to be boundaries on those relationships.

Verse 26, again, if anyone comes to me and does not love less by comparison, their parents, their spouse, and we might extend this out to boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance, brother, sister, and ultimately themselves, then they cannot be my disciple. Christ essentially is telling the multitudes gathered, take a look at your life. Where are you putting relationships before me? Where are you maybe sacrificing the opportunity for eternal life, for a physical life in its pleasures, or using relationships as an excuse? Ultimately, we must become disciples of Jesus Christ, and that requires not just preventing other relationships from getting in the way, but it also requires us to love less by comparison, our own self. Bearing one's cross and following after them was another condition that was placed on things. Luke 14, verse 27, he says, And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

You know, the closer that Christ got to Jerusalem, the closer his death became.

Even though he was not at this point in Luke 14 literally bearing his cross, even though he was not literally carrying the cross that he would ultimately do, or the stake or whatever it happened to be that he would ultimately die on, the road that he was on was leading to his death. When he reached Jerusalem, they were going to string him up on that thing. And he basically tells his disciples that in Luke 18. Let's go ahead and turn over there real quick. Luke 18, he pretty much tells them, look, when we get to the end of this road, they're going to kill me. And I want you to see how plainly the language is in this, because it's fascinating to me. Luke 18, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 31. Luke 18, verse 31, So he took the twelve aside, he pulled them out from the multitudes, and he said to them, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. And because it's really hard to decipher for the disciples, I'll translate. We're going to Jerusalem.

All things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.

All those things in Isaiah, all those things back in the Psalms, all those things that have been written about the Messiah, those are all going to come true. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit on. He tells them how badly they're going to ultimately treat them. They're going to scourge him, and then they're going to kill him. And on the third day, he will rise again. Verse 34, They understood none of these things. This thing was hidden from them. They were incapable of, incapable rather, unable, incapable. They were unable to understand what it was that he was telling them. They didn't get it. Interestingly, when we read the original passage in Luke 24, we talked about him opening the scriptures to them and saying, Hey, remember what I told you on the road back there? Hey, do you get it now? And they go, Oh, I get it now. Okay. They finally understood right before Christ's ascension.

They finally had the understanding there at that point in time.

He basically told his disciples this particular road for him in particular, but also for them was a one-way. At the end of it, once they reached Jerusalem, the Passover was kept. He would be betrayed and he would die as prophesied. If you think about it, too, the multitudes that followed him around would have been very familiar with the Roman method of execution by crucifixion.

You know, you saw people carrying those things around. You saw people strung up on the side of the road on them because the Romans used it to send a message. You know, they used it to send a message. This was something that was not uncommon to them. So this idea of burying their cross, carrying this giant timber down the road that ultimately at the end of your path gets stuck in a hole and you get put on it is something that they could understand, at least physically.

They may not have understood the spiritual analogy, but they knew what carrying one's cross meant.

It meant the individual carrying it was condemned. They'd been sentenced, and that sentence was ultimately being carried out. Like it was the green mile that said, Dead Man Walking. That was Dead Man Walking, carrying that thing down the road. You knew at the end of that, that thing was going in the ground and he was going up on it. So when they saw those individuals walking down the roads of Judea, that's what it meant for them to bear their cross. That person carrying that cross had no chance to put it down. With every step forward they took, they were one step closer, closer, closer to the end of their life. Let's go to Luke 9. Luke 9. Another passage we look at when we talk about baptism, talking very specifically about taking up the cross and following him.

But it ties one extra, one extra component into this.

Luke 9 verse 23. Then he said to them all, If anyone desires to come after me, or we might say, become a disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

This idea that that life going forward is a life of continually putting to death the self, continually becoming more and more like Jesus Christ, thinking more and more outside of ourselves and denying oneself each and every day. In Luke 14, the section that we read earlier, we won't read it again, but the section we read earlier talking about counting the costs, he connected all that together to make sure that they understood. My wife and I are in the midst of a remodel currently. We have a garage that was unusable space for the longest time and just basically was a catch-all for all of our stuff, and we're turning it into living space. We've run the numbers so many different times to make sure that we don't end up finishing this thing with one wall missing or a roof not on it. We're trying to make sure that this thing actually is going to get finished. When you talk about counting the cost and looking at ultimately down the road, Christ making the point to those gathered, look, this is a long game. This is not a short game. This is not resolved in a couple of years. This is not resolved in a couple of months. This is a lifetime of change and becoming more and more like our rabbi. Again, as a disciple, the longer a person spent with that individual, the more like that person they became. After a time, they started to talk like them. Literally, they would pick up similar speech patterns, act like them, think like them. And ultimately, the goal of the disciples that followed their rabbi was to become like them. That's why they followed them. They wanted to become like their teacher. They wanted to understand that person's interpretation of the law. And the more time they spent with them, the more they understood, the more they molded, and the more they conformed themselves into that teacher.

When we look at Luke 14, we tend to think about it from a standpoint of counting the cost on the front end before we enter into the baptismal covenant. And it is. It's important. It's a huge aspect of it. But also implicit in that is our actions throughout our lifetime that are helping us to become more like Jesus Christ as time goes on to follow through on that commitment. Because our baptismal commitment is the beginning of the process. It's the start of a process that eventually leads, as Mr. Miller mentioned this morning, to our perfection at the resurrection. It's a start of a lifetime of learning and growing, of learning how to be a peacemaker, how to show love to friends, and some of the more less-offed, finer and frankly missed points of Christianity sometimes. Learning to love our enemies, the people who do us harm. Sometimes, though, through this life, we'll struggle to have the strength to go on and carry that cross. And it's those times we need to turn to God in our weakness and really pray for strength. Now, as we enter into this self-examination period before the Passover, are we as zealous as we were when we first committed our lives to God? Are we as zealous? Has time taken its toll on us? Have we lost some of that zeal?

Have we lost the strength to finish? I hope not.

Not just finish, though. Not just kind of pass out as you cross the finish line, but really finish strong. Do we still have the strength to do that? And if not, we need to turn to God. We need to ensure that we have the strength to finish, because once that cross is on our shoulder, brethren, there is no plan B. There is no retreat. There's no going back. It's footstep to footstep to footstep to the end. And that brings us to our very final point today as we draw this to a close. In 334 BC, Alexander the Great and his army landed on the shores of Persia. Darius III was the ruler of Persia at that time. Greek forces under Alexander, who was only 22 at the time, by the way, conquering the majority of the known world. They were terribly outnumbered. Terribly outnumbered. His men, when they landed concerned for their safety and their lives, petitioned him to return to Greece and pick up more troops. He said, look, we're going to get slaughtered. There's not that many of us. There's a ton of Persians. I'd rather not be buried here. Could we please go home and get more people? Alexander's response was to order his men to burn their boats.

He set the boats on fire right in front of his men, and he said, no.

Legend holds that as the boats burned, as their only means of escape went up in smoke before their eyes, Alexander turned to his men and he said, we sail home on Persian ships, or we die. He burned the boats right in front of his men and then said, guess what? Now there is no plan B. Now there is no retreat. You fight like your life literally depends on it, or you're going to end up buried here with your buddies in Persian soil. So fight and win, and you can go home to your families. But there is no other way out. No plan B, no retreat.

Now if you think about it as a general, it's genius because 100% of their efforts and energy and thoughts are, how am I going to win this? How do I make all of them fall down before all of us fall down? Right? There was no even thought in the back of their mind of how they were going to get home. There wasn't a way home anymore. The only way out was through. Alexander and his army marched away from the burning hulls of his ships, engaged the Persian forces, ultimately conquered Persia, fulfilling prophecies that were recorded in Daniel, and the rest, they say, is history.

Those men had forsaken everything. There was no going back. There was no life that awaited them if they lost. They had nothing left on the table. They'd walked away from any other possibility of a different path. This was it. If things got hard, then they had to fight that much harder.

Quitting simply wasn't an option. You know, Christ addressed the multitudes in Luke 14.

He wasn't interested in folks who took a casual interest in what he had to say. He was interested in individuals who were passionate about this way of life, who desired to learn and readily implement what they learned, yielding themselves to this way of life and its characteristics.

He didn't want admirers. He didn't want folks that heard his teachings and went, you know, I really like that, and I like that, and I like that, but that Love Your Enemies thing, that ain't going to happen. I'm not doing that. He wanted people who would agree and shape their lives to his interpretation of the law of God. Folks that were going to go all in, who were going to burn their boats, so to speak, and go forward with no possibility of return. If we're going to value family and those relationships over him, ye cannot be his disciple. If we aren't willing to take up our cross and follow him, ye cannot be his disciple. And lastly, if we're not willing to forsake all, ye cannot be his disciple.