A Full Disclosure Gospel

Well, take your Bibles, would you, and open them to our text.

It is found in Luke chapter 14. As we are moving along in our study of this great, great gospel, the gospel of Luke. We're going to finish up chapter 14 this morning, and our text will be verses 25 to 35.

So let me go ahead and read that. Luke 14, starting with verse 25 and continuing on to the end of the chapter. Now great multitudes went with him, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, 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. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, lest after he has 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.

Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000?

Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So, likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. All right, this is an interesting passage, difficult passage, and I regret to tell you that I'm not going to make it any easier for you in my explanation of the passage.

There's something I think you should know about Satan. Not always a good thing, necessarily, to begin a sermon with Satan, but there's something you need to understand about him, about his tactics.

He is a deceiver, right? Satan is a deceiver, and I would even say the father of all deceivers. He's a liar, the father of all lies, the Bible says.

And so he's a deceiver. And Satan, I would say, is the king of what we might call, or has been called, the bait and switch. You understand that terminology? The bait and switch.

I learned about that tactic when I was in college. I was a business major in college, and we learned about this tactic, and it was taught really through a kind of legal case study involving the Sears and Roebuck Company.

And I remember it distinctly. And back in the day, the Sears and Roebuck Company used this tactic, and they used it quite effectively.

And what they would do, and you kind of, I think, know what they did in those days, and I think this still goes on in many businesses today. They would advertise, for example, a certain, say, washing machine, you know.

And they would advertise it at an incredibly low price, an irresistible price, you know. They'd be advertised for that, and so you would go in looking for it. And when potential customers would go into the store looking for this washing machine that was advertised so cheaply, they would discover that the store was out of stock.

They just didn't have it in stock. In fact, little to the customer's knowledge, they never did have it in stock to begin with. And it was just the bait to get them to come in.

And then, of course, the salesman would then kind of pitch for another washing machine and try to sell it to the customer at a higher price, of course.

Bait and switch. And the Sears Roebuck Company was sued for this tactic, and supposedly there were laws passed against it.

And yet this kind of stuff still goes on. Now, before you think I'm suggesting that the Sears Company is satanic, I'm not saying that at all. I have bought washing machines there and lawnmowers there and a lot of other things there too.

Yeah, I rather like shopping at Sears, all right? So just in case I have some Sears people out there, I don't want to cause any trouble there. They're not satanic. I'm not talking about that.

But I am talking about this bait and switch tactic and Satan's most effective strategy is this bait and switch kind of tactic.

That is, he advertises on the front end great things, wonderful things, if you will follow him. You know, things like pleasure and wealth and happiness and popularity and the praise of man and, you know, fulfillment supposedly, personal fulfillment, and certainly no regrets and no guilt in whatever it may be.

But this is the bait, of course. And then, of course, comes the switch. And so first the pleasures of sin for a season up front, but then later the bondage and the guilt and the misery and the consequences that go along with that.

It's the bait and switch. Now, I mentioned this to put it in bold contrast with Jesus and his method. Jesus did not use the bait and switch.

Sometimes we wish that he would, you know, but he didn't. And he never used deception. Never used salesman tactics.

Jesus hides nothing. He discloses everything. And we understand that from this passage here. So Jesus is open and transparent about what it means to be a true disciple, a true follower of Jesus.

He offers a full disclosure gospel, the good, the bad, and the ugly. All of it. Up front. And so if you hear a gospel that promises nothing but good things in this life, I must tell you it is a false gospel.

And the prosperity preachers, of course, they promise that in their gospel. And the health and wealth preachers, they promise that in their gospel, but they contradict the clear teaching of Scripture.

And they promise something the Bible never promises. And our text for this morning is, I think, a prime example of what the Bible teaches concerning what it means to be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And when we really study this passage, it makes us uncomfortable. And there's some things we need to understand about it, because Jesus is being painfully transparent in this passage.

And we don't always like transparency. Not really. We think we do. We think we want it. But we don't really like it when we hear it and see it. But Jesus gives a full disclosure here of true discipleship.

Now, before we look at what Jesus says about that, there's some things we should understand about this passage, just some general things, some general observations that we need to understand.

His subject, in the first place, Jesus is not telling us how to become a disciple. It's important that we understand that. This is not, you know, the subject is not how to be saved here.

You know, doing thus and such and so forth and giving up this and that, and that's how you are saved. That's not the subject here. Jesus is not telling those people he turned to and was teaching.

He's not telling them what they must do in order to become one of his disciples. Rather, Jesus is telling them what it will mean for them if they do become one of his disciples.

That's very important we understand this from the passage. Jesus is saying this is what a disciple is. This is what a true disciple does.

This is what a true disciple can expect in this life. All right, so that's the first thing you need to understand about this passage. Second, though, in understanding this, we need to also understand that Jesus is addressing unbelievers in this passage, primarily.

Though his disciples, his true disciples are present, and quite often Jesus is turning and teaching the multitudes, but he also has his own true disciples in mind.

And so they're there, they're hearing, but he is addressing primarily unbelievers. Verse 25, right there at the beginning, clearly states that great multitudes went with him, and he turned and said to them.

So he's speaking to an audience of unbelievers. Now, some of them were moving toward believing in Jesus. We should understand that.

And Jesus wants them to know the truth about genuine discipleship, about what it really means, what it really is. And I would also say and add that some there in this multitude were even at this point professing disciples.

They were professing disciples, but they were in name only disciples, like many, sadly, in our churches today.

And Jesus is, I guess we might say, kind of weeding out the false from the truth. Third, we should understand, I think, that Jesus is using a technique called hyperbole here.

This is important. Now, hyperbole is a form of rhetoric, and it uses exaggeration, intentionally uses exaggeration to communicate a message.

And so it's a form of, maybe we could call it a literary shock and awe, you know. And really, the first readers, well, let's go back to the first hearers of this teaching, they would have been shocked by what Jesus said here, especially what he said first in this part of his teaching.

And we're kind of shocked by it. I mean, you know, if you don't see this element of hyperbole, then you're going to misinterpret what Jesus is saying in this passage. For example, it would be a paramount contradiction of Scripture for Jesus to even suggest that true disciples should literally hate their father and mother and brothers and sisters and wife and children and even hate his or her own life.

That would be an extreme and appalling, a shocking contradiction of Scripture. But you see, this is hyperbole. This is hyperbole. This is an intentional exaggeration that is meant to shock the reader.

It's meant to deliver a kind of mental jolt, even emotional jolt. And it is done in order to make a strong point.

And the point is the extreme nature of true discipleship. That's his point. Now, with that said, let me give you a fourth observation, which, by the way, doesn't make what Jesus said any easier for us.

But Jesus is not talking here about some higher level of discipleship for the believer. As if to suggest that there are levels of discipleship, levels of commitment, levels of followership when it comes to the believer's life.

Like it or not, there is only one kind of true disciple. And this is difficult for us when we look at this and difficult when we compare what Jesus is saying to our own lives.

But it's meant to be. It's meant to cause us to examine ourselves. There's only one kind of true discipleship and it is the one Jesus describes here in this passage.

You see, you may have noticed the repetition of a certain phrase in the text. The phrase, cannot be my disciple.

It's repeated three times in the passage. Cannot be my disciple. Verse 26, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he, what, cannot be my disciple.

That's the first time it appears. And this is not only shocking, but it is also disturbingly narrow, isn't it? And then the second time, verse 27, And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

He did not say, cannot be one of my better disciples. He did not say, cannot be one of my higher level of disciples.

No, it is simply, you cannot be my disciple, period. That's troubling, isn't it? Huh? You're all looking very, very holy.

It's troubling. But this is what he's saying. And then the third time in verse 33, Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.

And so Jesus is not talking about a higher level of commitment and fellowship of Jesus. Jesus is talking about what it means to be a true disciple.

The repetition of this phrase, cannot be my disciple, then helps us to divide this passage into three parts. It's meant to help us to do that.

Three main parts. And these three parts of the passage address the three primary loves of life.

The love of people in this life. The love of personal pleasures, comforts in this life.

And then the love of possessions in this life. Those three categories, the three primary categories, or three primary loves of life.

And that's what Jesus is addressing. And so then, that said, first of all, a true disciple of Christ will love Jesus more than people.

That's number one. A true disciple of Christ. There's only one kind of disciple. A true disciple. Will love Jesus more than people.

Again, verse 26. If anyone comes to me, and this is, of course, in the sense of salvation, and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

And I've read it three times. Do we get it? Remember, again, Jesus is speaking in hyperbole. I said that's important to understand.

Otherwise, we're going to miss what he's saying. He's speaking in hyperbole. So Jesus is not saying that true disciples must hate their families.

We know that, don't we? Certainly, though we may not understand exactly what Jesus is saying. We're confused maybe a little bit by it, but we certainly know, or should know, that Jesus could not possibly mean that his true disciples are to hate their families.

That's not what he's talking about. The Bible is crystal clear about this issue of love and in the direction of love. Children are to love their parents. Exodus 20, 12.

Parents are to love their children. Titus 2, 4. Husbands are to love their wives. Ephesians 5, 25. Wives are to love their husbands.

Titus 2, 4. And beyond the family love, see, Jesus is just simply picking out the most common of loves, the most intensive love relationships in a person's life.

But there are other loves. And beyond the family love, the Bible exhorts us to, we could say, love everyone. We're to love everyone. 1 John 3, 11. Love one another.

Without qualification. And by the way, that includes our neighbors, which Jesus defined as everyone is our neighbor. Matthew 19, 19. Love our enemies.

We're to love our enemies. Luke chapter 6 and verse 27. And we're to even love ourselves. According to Ephesians 2, 29. The apostle John even gives this strong warning in 1 John 3, 14.

He said, We know that we have passed from death to life. Talking about salvation. Why do we know that? Because we love the brethren. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

That's pretty severe, isn't it? It's a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. And then John said in 1 John 4, 8.

He who does not love does not know God. And it could not be any clearer than that. The Bible is clear, crystal clear on this subject of love and the direction of our love.

And it's in all directions. This is, and this is but a, what I've given you, and I haven't even read the passages. You can look at them on your own. But this is but a sampling of the biblical exhortations to love one another.

And, you know, there are also many biblical prohibitions for hating against hating people. And it's clear from Scripture. So then, what does Jesus mean here in Luke 14, 26?

Well, the opposite of hate is love, right? And the word love doesn't appear in the passage. We know the opposite of hate is love, right?

I mean, that's right. The opposite of hate is love. And so, clearly, in the passage, it is implied that a true disciple is one who loves Jesus. Right?

I mean, that much is clear. But, of course, the idea is not love Jesus and hate everyone else. We know that cannot be what Jesus is saying.

that would contradict God's Word. So, here is what Jesus means. And then I'll explain it a little further. True disciples, His true disciples, love their families.

But they love Jesus more. That's what He's saying. To love Jesus more. The Hebrews understood and often used the word hate differently than we would use the word hate in our language and the way we use the word hate.

To them, hate was often used to highlight personal preference. A personal preference. And especially, of course, almost exclusively in those cases where love is the greater context.

And that's the case here. Hate highlights personal preference as does love also. One famous passage or example of this would be Malachi chapter 1 and verse 2.

And it's, of course, quoted in Hebrews 9. But where the Bible says, Jacob have I loved and Esau, but Esau have I hated. That's kind of troubling, isn't it?

Love, hate. Love, Esau, hate. Or love Jacob, love Esau. But the meaning is that God, and we know it from Scripture, that God chose, God preferred Jacob over his brother Esau.

Even though Esau, of course, was the older and deserved the birthright, but God preferred Jacob over Esau. And this is what Jesus is talking about here. To hate your family means that you prefer Jesus over them.

Now, that's what he means, but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. In fact, what Jesus is saying about a true disciple is not an easy thing. It's a hard thing.

To love them, you love them, but you love Jesus more. To honor your family, but you honor Jesus more.

And then, where loving and honoring a family member brings you into conflict with God and his word, then you deny the family. See, that's the hard part.

And this is true whether the family is a believing family or an unbelieving family. We're to prefer Jesus. We're to deny them if loving them brings us into conflict with Jesus.

And when the desires of a family member and the desires of Christ come into conflict with one another, then the desires of the family member must be denied.

That's the truth. A true disciple will choose to displease those he loves most in this life rather than to displease him who died on the cross for us is the idea.

Jesus said in Matthew 10, 37, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

That is, we are a true disciple must subordinate all our loves for people, even the love for ourselves.

We're to subordinate those loves under our love for Jesus. We're to love him more. Do you? We're to love him more.

We're to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength, Luke 10, 27. So first of all, a true disciple of Christ will love Jesus more than people.

Second, a true disciple of Christ will love Jesus more than pleasure. I'm not here talking about sinful pleasures.

I'm talking about the pleasures of life, personal pleasures of life, creature comforts of life, a life free of difficulty and oppression and affliction and suffering and a life of liberty and freedom which we so value as Americans and rightly so we should value it, but not above Jesus.

See, we're to love Jesus more than pleasures, so much more that we would even give up our own liberties in order to continue to love Jesus.

Verse 27, and whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now, what does that mean? You know, we find this in a number of places in Scripture, bear his cross, take up his cross and so forth.

Well, you know that Jesus is not telling us to take up his cross. All right, it's not about that. I mean, how could we? Jesus is the only one who could do that, to take up his cross for us.

And he did do that, didn't he? Now, talking about that, it's not in terms of dying for sin and a sacrifice for sin. There has only been one sacrifice for sins and that was the sacrifice of Jesus.

That was his cross. He's not telling us to take up his cross. And so what does Jesus mean? Well, in this context here, Jesus is saying that my true disciples know that knowing me and loving me and following me, obeying me is worth all the hard things we might suffer in this life.

That's what a true disciple knows. It is to love Jesus more than loving and desiring a life free of hardship. And this is very difficult for Americans.

Because we don't know about hardship. Now we know personal hardships and such. I'm not saying that. We do suffer. And this really includes all things, not just Christian persecution, but even personal afflictions and health issues and the hardships of life and so forth.

It includes all of those things. And so Jesus is telling his people, telling these people, up front, he's telling them on the front end, that the life of a true disciple is going to be war.

He's telling them that on your journey toward heaven, it is not going to be a walk in the park or picnic, not going to be any of those kind of things at all.

if you follow me, it is going to cost you. Going to cost you. And for some of you, it may even cost you dearly, it may even cost your life.

That's what he's saying to them. This is a full disclosure gospel. Jesus is not hiding it, not sugarcoating it, not soft-selling anything. And remember, Jesus is speaking to unbelievers primarily here.

I think what a strange approach to evangelism. something totally foreign to our way of thinking in our day, in our evangelistic efforts of the church today.

Most evangelistic methods today seek to make it as easy as possible for people to trust Christ. I mean, just think about it. And we withhold a lot of things so that it would be easy for them.

And for many, Jesus' approach, not just only here, but in other places that we have, in the gospels, Jesus' approach would be tantamount to chasing people off.

But Jesus often chased people off because Jesus was not interested in some superficial conversion that was meaningless, which is what a lot of people have done.

Just superficial. Jesus is not interested in a sugar-coated gospel, gospel presentation that makes it easy for a person to say yes.

And also, by the way, makes congregations proud of their baptisms and church additions and membership. When really, in reality, a lot of it is simply introducing people to a slightly different way of living, a new culture, a new morality.

reality. And yet, it's not true. Jesus is calling for a takeover of your life, not a makeover of your life.

God. And he turns to this crowd who has been following him everywhere and he says, if you're going to follow me, it will cost you. It will cost you.

And before you take another step in my direction, count the cost. And then Jesus uses a couple of analogies. He says the Christian life, first of all, is kind of like building a tower brick by brick.

brick. And it's not easy. It's hard work. It's expensive.

It's costly. But it's worth it giving all that up. But count the cost because this is what's coming for you if you follow me.

All true disciples understand it. He says, for which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it.

And of course, every builder would do that. I mean, any smart builder. Lest, he says, after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him saying, this man began to build and he was not able to finish it.

We can understand the analogy and Jesus is comparing this to the Christian life. It's like building a tower brick by brick and it's costly. And many have not counted that cost to walk that aisle and pray to prayer and so forth.

And I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this over the years of my ministry. People who walk down the aisle and they pray to prayer and they seem to, you know, even got wet in the baptistry and they seem to be very passionate about Jesus and emotional, certainly very emotional about Jesus and about their, quote, newfound faith.

and there are people who seem to have a love for and a hunger for God's word but they are people who gradually have faded away and now, you know, they've dropped out and they've returned back to the old life.

They didn't count the cost. They didn't count the cost. They bought into some kind of false notion about discipleship. discipleship is like building a tower brick by brick.

Now, I'm not saying that salvation is something accomplished by works. I am saying that a true Christian life will involve works and will involve sacrifice and will involve hardness and afflictions and difficulty and you'd better count the cost.

And Jesus says that Christian life is also like fighting a war, battle by battle. And it is. Verse 31, Or what king going to make war against another king does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000.

And of course, every king is going to do that. Again, kind of counting the cost. Or else, while the other, that is the enemy, is still a great way off, that is before the battle even begins, he sends a delegation.

The king sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. That is, he surrenders even before the battle takes place. See, nominal believers, I don't even like that term, let's call it in-name only believers, and there are a bunch of those.

Have never considered the reality of the spiritual war and the reality of the strength of the enemy. Never considered it. And so they quickly surrender in the face of the enemy and at the site of the very first battle.

And they have never counted the cost of discipleship. The work is too hard. The work is too costly. The cost is too great. And they love comfort. The comforts of this world and the pleasures of this world more than they love Jesus.

I mean, this is tough stuff. There's no way to, nor would I ever try to explain this away. A true disciple will love Jesus more than a life free of war and hardship, the hardships of following Him.

And then one more, a true disciple of Christ will love Jesus more than possessions. And this is, we understand this one, don't we? Verse 33, so likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.

And by the way, this was a reality for most new believers in Jesus' day. it's a reality for most believers in many parts of our world today.

I mean, they didn't lose everything. Everything. They lost family, wealth, and social standing in the community. Many of them even lost life.

And still, that's happening today. And so, you know, I ask the question, do you consider, did you consider that possibility when you trusted Christ?

And I would say, for most of us, probably not. Probably not. And we didn't because of where we live and the kind of culture we live in.

I mean, God in His divine providence is not, not yet anyway, required this of most Christians in this country to give up everything you have.

God hasn't required it. Not in the sense that we understand what He's talking about here. You see, and here, here's the lesson for us. It's the, the broader lesson that we need to get.

And, and this will apply whether you, you know, live in some remote and poor and anti-Christian country, you know, Muslim country or someplace like that, or, and this will apply to this, this country where we still have the freedom to worship and follow Christ and even to evangelize, though the, that freedom is, is gradually dwindling away.

But, here's the truth and it applies no matter who you are or where you live. Jesus is talking about the difference between being possessed by your Savior or being possessed by your stuff.

Possessions of life. Now, of course, a true disciple is possessed by the Savior. Possessed by the Savior. A true disciple then does not hold his or her possessions so dear that he or she would not gladly give them up for Christ if need be.

You understand? A true disciple loves Jesus more than all his or her earthly possessions. This is what Jesus says a true disciple is.

And then Jesus concludes with a what I would call a very strong warning. Frightening warning, actually.

A warning to many who are sitting in pews just like you in churches all around the world. But especially in this country, I would say, it's a warning.

He's been speaking, remember, to the multitudes of people that have been following him. Some of them, remember, have professed to be his disciples.

I guess we could imagine, you know, Jesus preaching here and out there in various places are people who profess to be disciples but really are not.

True disciples. So he's issuing this to them. And these who have been following him, they have followed him everywhere and they have been sitting at his feet.

You can imagine this. They've been sitting at his feet. They have been listening to all of his teaching. They are interested in it, even to some point hungering for it and affected by it emotionally and even even in some spiritual sense, certainly intellectually.

So they've been there with Jesus. They're following him. They've heard all he has to say. They're in on all of his teaching. But while they professed him as their Lord right then, soon they would be abandoning him.

They would be some of the very ones who cried out crucify him. because they were not true disciples. Not true.

They loved people more than they loved Jesus. They loved pleasure more than they loved Jesus. They loved possessions more than they loved Jesus. And churches today are full of people like this.

I mean, seriously, tragically. people. And Jesus issues a frightening warning. Verse 34, he says, salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?

It is neither fit for the land, kind of like its fertilizer or something, nor for the dunghill, the manure pile. But men throw it out.

Why? Because it's useless. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. This is interesting. Do you know what he's saying? He is saying specifically to those who were following him, those who even profess to be true disciples, but were not.

He's talking about those who know the truth. This is interesting. They know the truth. They have professed to believe it.

They know the Savior, in name anyway. They profess to love him, believe in him.

them. But they are people who have never really, not really left the world. Not really.

And who one day will return to it. These are the people he's talking to. Now think about it. It's frightening. Those kind of people.

And they're in every church. And I would say lovingly, probably right here too. Though I don't know who. But they're in every church.

And you know, you can't really tell such a person anything scriptural that he or she doesn't already know. It's a dangerous position to be in.

They just already know all of the truth. You can't really show such a person some doctrinal, some biblical doctrine that he or she has not already heard about.

Maybe even studied. And passionate preaching, biblical preaching, will have very little effect. And profound teaching of God's word will make, sadly, very little difference in this person's life.

Because these are people who are turning away from Christ with their eyes open. These are people who are sinning against God, the God they know or know about.

and even have the right knowledge about. They're sinning against that God they know. They're rebelling against the Christ they know about.

And they're searching, they're not searching for truth because they have found it. But they have rejected it.

God and listen, if that's you, or if you know someone like this, I must tell you that you, they, are in the most dangerous and precarious position anybody could ever be in.

I've heard Adrian Rogers say many times the most dangerous place for an unbeliever is in the church. You know, part of the membership of the church.

You can't tell them anything. They already know it. There's nothing yet to reveal. It's all been revealed and they have considered all of that.

And so what more is there? Now, all things are possible with God, of course. but Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 4 warns, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, enlightened by the truth, and have tasted the heavenly gift, that is, tasted the gospel even, just like a taste test, you know, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, that is, they've shared in and experienced the working of the Holy Spirit in their midst, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, as they turn away from it.

We're not talking about true believers here, we're just talking about those who have tasted it, been enlightened by the truth, and all these things, if they turn away from it, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, a place of repentance.

This is frightening. Impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put Him to an open shame.

That's the point that Jesus is making at the close of this teaching, teaching to the multitudes, the unbelievers. Might as well have said, some of you out there claim to be true disciples, but you're not.

Because you have been with me all this time, you're in a dangerous position. You're like salt that has lost its usefulness.

true disciples, those who love Jesus more than all other people, those who love Jesus more than personal pleasures of this life, even liberty and freedom itself, a true disciple loves Jesus more than possessions.

are you a true disciple? who will love Jesus and who will to be!

who will be to who be