Sermon Tone Analysis

January 24, 2016

*Read Lu 14:25-35 *– A couple got married, but soon after, Paul stopped wearing his wedding ring.

His wife asked, “Why don’t you ever you’re your ring?”

He said, “It cuts off my circulation.”

She replied, “I know.

That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

Well, this passage is about the same issue as it relates to our marriage to Christ.

Many people claim faith in Him, but they’ve taken off the ring.

They’re still flirting with other idols.Their commitment is half-hearted at best, and Jesus’ point is, that just won’t do.

You’re either in or out.

Disciples can’t sit on the fence.

A lot of people believe there are two levels of Christians – those, like themselves, who believe the facts but are unchanged in life, moderates – and a few Marine types, like pastors and missionaries and a few others who are a little on the fanatical side.

Disciples.

Radical Christians.

The all-ins! They’re suggesting you can be a Xn without being a disciple.

One commentator says: “Jesus seems to make a distinction between salvation and discipleship.

Salvation is open to all who will come by faith, while discipleship is for believers willing to pay a price.

Salvation means coming to the cross and trusting Jesus Christ, while discipleship means carrying the cross and following Jesus Christ.”

I don’t know where he got that, but he didn’t get it from Jesus.

Jesus never says or implies, “Okay, those of you who want the easy way, just believe.

But I also need a few Green Berets.”

Never says that.

Never implies that!

In fact, look closely and you will when talking about disciples, He’s addressing the whole crowd here – not just the 12.

The whole crowd must choose to be His disciples or be left out altogether.

There’s not two levels.

Just one.

Neither Jesus nor the Bible know anything about multi-level Christianity.

There’s no class distinction between regular Christians and hard-core disciples.

Jesus nowhere says, as some advocate, that you can accept Jesus as Savior now, and maybe as Lord later.

There aren’t two standards.

Full discipleship is a requirement for everyone.

But the Bible says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord . . .

you will be saved” (Rom 10:9).

Lordship is not optional.

To be a disciple is to be a Christian.

And to be a Xn is to be a disciple.

You can’t say, “Well, I’m a Christian, but I’m not into all that.”

There aren’t two standards.

If someone has taught you that, you have been sorely misled.

That is precisely what Jesus is warning about here.

As this passage opens, Jesus is finally leaving the extended lunch He had at the home of a leading Pharisee.

As He does so, v. 25 tells us, “Now great crowds accompanied him.”

There are lots of people.

But there is a dilemma.

They think he is on the way to Jerusalem to claim His empire as Messiah.

Actually He is on His way to Jerusalem to die to pay the price for entrance into that empire, and these people don’t get that – not one little bit.

They think they are in because they are Jews and keep the law.

Jesus knows differently.

So three times we find the phrase, “cannot be my disciple.”

So guess what the theme is? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist.

This is one more way Jesus defines saving faith.

Salvation is by faith alone.

But faith is costly, and Jesus is not a seeker-friendly evangelist who tells His followers, “Let’s just get them in first – we’ll tell them about the cross later.”

He is no bait-and switch specialist.

He believes in full disclosure.

Count the cost NOW if you want to be mine!

If you’ve looked at your phone bill lately, you know exactly what I mean.

Get a line for $19.95 a month.

But when the bill comes, suddenly it’s $50 – filled with extraneous state, local and federal taxes, and other totally unintelligible “access” charges.”

A lot of people advocate that’s how we should entice people to Christ.

But Jesus never goes there.

He’s up front.

Nothing hidden.

Now, to get the sense of this passage, let’s start back to front.

Vv. 34-35: “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.”

What is this all about?

It is a solemn warning.

Modern table salt is generally pure and does not lose its savor.

But in Bible times, salt, often from the Dead Sea, was mixed with impurities.

Salt could waste away to a residue that was worthless for either preservation or spicing things up.

So Jesus uses salt as to represent a professing disciple who starts off with great enthusiasm (salty), but who lacks staying power.

His faith was never real.

He wanted the blessings, but not the person of Christ.

In hard times he fails and is “thrown away” – a Biblical term for lacking salvation.

This is the third soil in that parable where the seed starts to grow but is choked out by the cares of this world.

Remember?

They looked real at first, but never were.

They didn’t lose their salvation.

You can’t lose that gift.

These never had it in the first place.

John says of such people in I Jn 2:19-20, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

You’d have sworn they were true Xns.

Never missed a Sunday.

Always gave an offering.

Even taught a class.

But when the going got tough, they left town.

The writer to Hebrews makes a really sobering comment about such people: “4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt” (Heb 6:4-6).

People who have seen the truth of the gospel in all its glory and outwardly subscribed to it for a time only to turn their back on it – for those there is no hope.

So Jesus is warning, “Don’t be salt that has lost is savor.

Salt that’s not salt.

Be real.”

Now, to prevent that, you must count the cost before you commit.

He gives two examples.

Vv. 27-31, “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?