Love Him First to Love Them Best

[Luke 14:25-35] Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. ³³ So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. ³⁴ “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? ³⁵ 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.”

Love Him First to Love Them Best

A man bought a car without counting the cost. He knew what the payments would be but didn’t realize how much the insurance would be. And he was totally caught off guard by the price of repairs.

He was not prepared for the cost. Every new clunk and screech left him sweating. Then his inability to face a major repair led to an even hastier trade – a trade that left him worse off than how he started.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus addresses the “great crowds” who “accompanied Him.” He warns them of the cost they will face in this world as His followers so that no surprise of trial, rejection, or responsibility causes them to make a hasty trade – trading in their faith for a benefit in this world.

I.

Strangely to us, Jesus begins with these words: “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.” Father and mother, wife and children, siblings, and even your own life. Hate?

This is not hate in the sense we think of it, as if Jesus is telling you to be mean, nasty, and unloving toward your parents and children. We know from the rest of Scripture and common sense that that’s not it. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Husbands, love your wives as your own bodies.” But there is, Biblically, another sense of this word that means to choose or prioritize the one over the other.

So, God said about two brothers, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” [Romans 9:13]. This didn’t mean that God was mean to Esau or didn’t love him. It meant that, in regard to passing down the blessing of Abraham – the blessing of carrying on the lineage of the coming Savior – God chose Jacob over Esau. “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.” 

On the buffet line at a wedding, you hate the chicken. You might love chicken. But you make room for the prime rib first. Prime rib you loved, chicken you hated.

And whoever would be a disciple of Jesus recognizes the First Commandment – “You shall have no other gods.” Not mom, not dad; not son or daughter, not wife or husband. No one gets to be Savior, Redeemer, Truest Friend, God and Lord – no one gets to be your All-in-all, except Jesus Christ, with the Father and the Spirit, one God.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” [Matthew 22:37-39]. There is a first and a second, and God is first. Not mom or dad, or wife or husband, or child, or sibling – nor your own self – but Jesus alone —

— And certainly not the ideas, ideals, or treasures of this world or the opinions of your neighbor or those who seem to hold sway in this world or over your life. Jesus you love first. But truly, this is easier to say than to do. And we often misstep.

II.

In regard to all of those, we love them best when we love our Lord and God, Jesus, first. When you hold to the Word of God first, you are the best you you can be to them. The Word of Jesus says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved His church” [Ephesians 5:25]. “Wives, respect your husbands, and receive their leadership” [Ephesians 5:22,23]. Children, “obey your parents in the Lord… that it may go well with you.” [Ephesians 6:1-3]

And, Fathers, His Word says to you, “bring your children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (His Word)” and “not to provoke your children to anger” by being too hard on them [Ephesians 6:4]. “These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” [Deuteronomy 6:6-9]

When you love Christ first, you love your family best. They want many things from you – but loving Christ first means you will choose and prioritize the “one thing needed” [Luke 10:42] over the many things wanted. Don’t give them a bad trade but know what you most truly owe them. And other good things will be possible, at God’s direction.

III.

At the time Jesus said these words in our Gospel, He was speaking them to disciples who were soon to face a great price for being disciples of Jesus. They would face rejection from family and synagogue, hardships, beatings, and imprisonments – and the loss of their own lives – for publicly confessing Jesus as Messiah.

All of which they could trade in for an easier path by not confessing His name publicly. That bad trade would be tempting, so Jesus wants them to know ahead of time the costs they will face.

Today, among your neighbors, there are those who come to faith in Jesus Christ – and the price they will pay is scorn and rejection from their families and friends. They may be mocked. And if they’ve been raised in some other religious tradition, they will disappoint dad and mom by becoming a Christian. It’s a hard price to face. This is what it means that we must love Jesus more than father or mother, husband or wife.

For some, in some places, leaving their family’s religion for faith in Jesus can mean violence from those very same people. Jesus, in the Gospel, lets them know the cost ahead of time so they can turn to the Holy Spirit for strength and endure.

But how about those raised in the Church? In a free nation. Is there a cost? In my experience, the cost often goes like this:

A pastor teaches about issues that are touchy in people’s lives – or controversial in our culture – about marriage, man and woman, how God has ordered our lives together; about not living together; about divorce; about abortion; about homosexuality as against God’s will and nature – and who gets angry?

Often, moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas who have never supported any of that stuff, but whose children or grandchildren are living it.

The parents or grandparents have followed the children. Unwilling to upset them. Or unable to come to grips with what it might mean for their children or grandchildren if those things really are against God’s will.

But because the parents follow toward the ways of their children, now those children have lost their only rope and anchor in truth. Their only rope and anchor in the Savior.

But when mom and dad, and grandparents, keep their love of Jesus their Savior first, their younger loved ones still have a lifeline to the forgiveness of sins in Jesus. A rope and anchor to their Savior in their family remains. You love them best when you love Jesus first.

IV.

When you love Him first, you are loving them best. And we love Him first because He first loved us [1 John 4:19]. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” [1 John 4:10]. “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” – “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” [Romans 5:6-8].

Jesus has loved you to death. And, in Him, “you have redemption, the forgiveness of your sins” [Colossians 1:14]. We each fall short of what Jesus has commanded us today. And He has forgiven you all of your sins by the price He paid, when He kept as first the Father’s will to save you [Luke 22:42; Philippians 2:8].

You are all sons and daughters, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, friends, and neighbors – you are all some of those things. And someone in each of your lives has benefited you by loving Jesus first. Do the same. And never, for anyone, trade in your Savior who has first loved you. Amen.

The Example of His Humility - Luke 14:1-14

<)) Listen to the sermon here and here.

[Luke 14:12-14] He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

The Example of His Humility

Knowledge of our Lord’s humility – what He did for us – teaches us to look at our neighbors, and ourselves, from a heavenly perspective instead of an earthly one.

The story I told to the children a minute ago was based on Scripture in James 2:1-5. Here it is: My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. ² For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, ³ and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” ⁴ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? [James 2:1-4]

So much of how we perceive others is based on self-benefit, without even realizing it. That well-dressed visitor, or that good-seeming family, how good would it be for us to have them here! But that man or woman who look another way, do we notice that they haven’t come back? Do we ask?

Are we chummy with those whose resources or connections we imagine could somehow benefit us, while being quick to dismiss those who look like they could only need something from us?

In your own life, as a Christian – and in your life together as a congregation – are you looking to the benefit you could receive from others or are you seeking how you could be a benefit to others? Which of those motives will God bless?

From an earthly perspective, that man in fine clothing may be of greater benefit to you. But from a heavenly perspective, both he and the shabby looking man are equally sinners for whom their Savior has shed His blood to redeem them.

From heaven’s perspective, both poor and rich are in poor condition – and you and me – physically and spiritually. Therefore, you and I are called not to be benefited by others but to be of benefit to them. Individually and as a congregation, this is Christ’s mission in us – “Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve…” [Matthew 20:28].

However, in ways we may not notice about ourselves, the natural tendency of our sin-fallen nature is to look to our self-benefit in various situations.

Self-benefit is sometimes the hidden motive behind both giving and receiving hospitality. “I don’t like that person, but I better go to their party – because of how it might benefit me someday.” “I better invite so-and-so – to avoid the drama that would come it I didn’t.”

Sometimes that’s just the way life works – and it is how the world operates. Fine. But Jesus is telling us to have another motive. Go and invite out of sincere desire to be a good friend, a good family member, a good colleague to those not easily liked.

Self-benefit is the true reason behind the excuses for not being generous toward others – though God has been generous and patient with us.

Very strangely, self-benefit is so engrained into our nature that it even becomes our excuse for doing good to others. “I give to that charity because it makes me feel better –like I’m part of something bigger than myself.” “I believe it will come back around to me.”

We feel the need to justify charitable behavior, or treating another well, by saying how it benefits us. But what should my real reason be? “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” 

Let it not be self-benefit but a true perspective of what our Savior has done for us which determines what we do for others [Philippians 2:3]. And “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” [Matthew 7:12].

Some of us may succeed at outwardly presenting ourselves as being dressed “in fine clothing” – but inwardly, we are in that “shabby clothing” of sin.

What Jesus has done for us is that He has humbled Himself to become our Savior on the cross: “…Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.⁸ And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” [Philippians 2:5-8]

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich” [2 Corinthians 8:9]. “God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” [2 Corinthians 5:21].

Jesus emptied Himself to become the poor man on the cross – making your poverty of unrighteousness His own, to die in your sins — In order to fill you with His richness, to make His righteousness yours, to make you alive in His resurrection. He made your true poverty His to make His true riches yours.

“Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” [Philippians 2:9-11]

To finish the verse I started earlier, “Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” [Matthew 20:28]

Jesus has not acted for self-benefit, but for your benefit – to make the poor rich. He gets nothing from us that was not already His own – instead He gave Himself for us.

He has “chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom” [James 2:5]. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” [1 Timothy 1:15]

This is the heavenly perspective from which we look at both our rich and poor neighbor. We are here for how Jesus will benefit them, as He has benefited poor us.

So, into your life – and into your church – don’t just invite those who can give you a return that “you be repaid” [Luke 14:12]. Invite and work for those who can give you no benefit whatsoever [Luke 14:13] – and “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” [Luke 14:14] as you gather there with those whom you welcomed here. Amen.

Faith's Narrow Door and a Full House - Luke 13:22-30

<)) Listen to the sermon here and here

[Luke 13:22-30] He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, 24“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ 28In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. 30And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Faith’s Narrow Door and a Full House

I.

As Jesus was going from town to town, on His way to Jerusalem, and was teaching along the way, a man came up to Jesus and finally asked the question that was gnawing at him: “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”

In passages leading up to this reading, Jesus had given severe warnings to the teachers and experts in God’s Law about their own eternal destination [Luke 11:39-46]. Jesus warned those who trusted in money about the cost to their soul [Luke 12:13-21]. 

Jesus condemned the hypocrites who kept up good appearances on the outside but inside were full of wrongs [Luke 12:1-2]. And when some saw in the news a tragedy that had befallen others, Jesus said, “Do you think they were worse sinners than all the others? Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” [Luke 13:1-5].

Jesus said that those who acknowledged Him would be acknowledged in heaven, but those who denied Him would be denied by heaven [Luke 12:8-9]. Yet so many of the teachers and the people were indeed denying Him. Jesus warned about division over His name even in families, which we read about last week [Luke 12:52-53], and which perhaps this man was seeing.

There were what seemed to be so many “No’s”, and where were the “Yes’s”? “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” “And,” perhaps the man was thinking, “what about myself?”

II.

Jesus answers, “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” “For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” What does Jesus mean?

Well, first of all, Jesus’ message of the narrow door does not mean, “Make yourself better and better, and if you’re finally good enough you’ll fit through the door. So be really good, because it’s really narrow.”

Nothing detestable, nothing false, no hidden wrong, no darkness, no uncleanness – nothing that isn’t completely pure, nothing less than completely holy can be in heaven. Efforts at your own moral improvement don’t get you through that door.

The narrow door to heaven is as narrow as One Man – the only man who could enter. For you, the door to heaven is the cross of Jesus. He alone is perfect. He alone is holy. He alone is your doorway.

Jesus, who is perfect and holy, carried your unholiness and sin for you to the cross – your sin was put away forever in Him in His death. He Himself became your sin-offering, a sacrifice which atoned for your sins of body and soul. By the sacrifice Jesus made, you are now holy to God. That is your entrance in the door.

“None is righteousness, no, not one… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified – deemed righteous, holy to God – by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation (a sacrifice that takes away God’s anger) by His blood, to be received by faith.” [Romans 3:11,23-25]

III.

That last part, “received by faith”, is part of the narrowness of that door, not by God’s restriction but because of man’s resistance. The free righteousness by faith in Jesus is narrow to human pride. Human pride won’t admit, “I need a Savior” – or that my way of thinking or living could be wrong. Pride objects to the idea that I’m not enough and need to be saved by faith alone.

Faith is a narrow door to the one who says, “I can do it myself!” Faith in Christ was a narrow door to the Pharisees who “Trusted in themselves that they were righteous and therefore treated others with contempt” [Luke 18:9]. Those who don’t want others to have such free entry.

And Jesus isn’t telling us this so we can point our finger at others about how much they reject the narrow door. Jesus is telling us this because our our own sinful nature still has these dangerous tendencies clinging in us.

Those, in today’s Gospel, who Jesus said would knock but not enter appealed to their mere acquaintance with Jesus as fellow Israelites as their basis for entry – “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets” – as if they were members of the same club, entitled to all its rights and privileges. That way of thinking can certainty infect the Church too.

In every case, those “who seek to enter and will not be able” are those who seek entrance, not by faith, but as their due [Romans 4:3-5] – “They did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone…” [Romans 9:32]

— Yet others “who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith” [Romans 9:30]. “The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” [Romans 3:22] – by which you are counted righteous right now – and through which you will finally be righteous in heaven, as a gift.

IV.

The door is narrow – “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” [John 14:6].

So, back to the man’s question: Does this narrow door mean that those who are saved will be few? Not at all. Instead, “God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts!” [Isaiah 55:8-9]. God shows His power in that this narrowest way is the way that fills heaven abundantly:

“A great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes” [Revelation 7:9] – Many coming “from east and west, and from north and south” who will “recline at table in the kingdom of God.” [Luke 13:29; Matthew 8:11]

Elsewhere, Jesus calls it a sixtyfold and hundredfold harvest [Matthew 13:8] – and like a small mustard seed which grows into an entire tree [Luke 13:18-19].

The door to heaven is as narrow as One Savior – and that Savior’s love for the world, and His ability to save, are not small: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” [John 1:29] – “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” [1 John 2:2].

What we see around us in the world, or in ourselves, might cause us, sometimes, to ask that man’s question, “Will few be saved?” But faith in Jesus’ words, and faith in Jesus’ cross, give us confidence in a big salvation and a large heaven – more than we can number – from every place. Thanks be to God. Amen.