Nothing Sacred

“So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” (Lu 14:33 AV)

 

Talk about an extreme standard!  I believe this is the number one issue in the church today.  We simply do not teach what it means to be a disciple of Christ.  We preach and teach salvation.  We rightly speak of the perils of eternal damnation.  However, we tend to leave out the whole discipleship thing.  Jesus does not separate the two.  In fact, in Luke chapter 14 and in the particular passage, they are one and the same.  There are expectations of salvation.  It may not cost us anything and cost Jesus everything, but that does not suggest once we are saved, there are no expectations.  No, it will not hinder us from salvation.  This is the error of the false teachings on the Lordship of Christ.  However, we are told to call upon the LORD to be saved.  There is an understanding when we receive Christ as our Savior, we are at the same time bowing to the sovereignty of a God who can condemn our souls to hell.  Salvation is a gift.  But it is also submission.  Therefore, discipleship and salvation go hand in hand.  Discipleship is merely the continuance of the submission exercised at the point of salvation.  What started with accepting God’s free gift of eternal life by the blood of Christ continues as a life that is submitted to a God whom we have, up until that point, deeply offended.  The saint that doesn’t forsake everything for the Lordship of Christ cannot be a true disciple even though he or she may have accepted the free gift of salvation.

Jesus is not suggesting true discipleship is a commune wherein no one owns anything and God owns it all.  He is not suggesting true discipleship is living in poverty.  This is not what He meant.  The two examples given are a homeowner preparing to build a tower and a king of a kingdom under threat by a larger one.  The first is a homeowner who has the means to build but doesn’t count the cost and comes to terms with it might cost him more than he intended.  The idea here is the builder has what it takes to finish the job, but in doing so, would have to prioritize all his material possessions to accomplish the task.  The principle is sacrifice.  The builder must sacrifice some of what he has to produce something that he needs.  He needs the tower for protection.  Hoarding what he does not need because he does not want what he truly needs is the opposite of sacrifice.  Therefore, the first thing one must forsake is one’s own self-interest.  The king of the smaller kingdom is encouraged to come to terms with an enemy five times his size.  This king must surrender his sovereignty to one mightier than he.  What a picture of surrender to the Lordship of Christ.  He must forsake his self-determination.  No longer can he decide what he or his kingdom will do.  He has placed his whole existence under the control of another.

The forsaking here is not as simple as our material possessions.  This forsaking here is forsaking self-interest and self-determination.  It is giving up what we care about and the freedom to pursue it.  Discipleship is not a mere exercise of academia.  Discipleship is not the gathering of facts and the reading of books.  Discipleship is the surrender of the will to a Master who rightly owns us.  It is having faith to believe His way is the better way and that our lives are for His glory.  Discipleship is not a study.  It is a way of life.  We give ourselves over to things bigger than ourselves all the time.  We have our favorite sports team and its logos are all over the place.  We have our favorite app and nothing gets in the way of playing it.  We have our political party or our national identity and will defend it vigorously.  Yet all these things are not who the saint is.  He or she is a child of God!  Our loyalty starts and ends with Him.  To forsake all harkens back to the beginning of Jesus’ discussion of true discipleship.  That is, deny self!  If we cannot deny self, we have no hope of being faithful disciples of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.