In the sermon titled 'The Prerequisites to Discipleship,' Peter Allison explores the demands Jesus places on those who wish to follow him, as outlined in Luke 14:25-35. The speaker emphasizes the necessity of prioritizing one's relationship with Christ above all others, explaining that the term 'hate' in this context means to love less. Allison addresses the 'Lordship controversy,' highlighting that one cannot acknowledge Jesus as Savior without accepting Him as Lord. He underscores the importance of counting the cost of discipleship, which involves a willingness to forsake all earthly attachments and embrace sacrifice. Through historical and contemporary examples, the speaker illustrates the concept of bearing one's cross as an active commitment to serve Christ, even amidst persecution and loss. Despite the costs, Allison assures that the rewards of discipleship, such as peace with God, victory over sin, and eternal riches, far outweigh the sacrifices. The sermon concludes with a prayer for grace and courage to live as true disciples of Jesus.

Please turn in your scriptures to Luke chapter 14. I'd like to begin reading at verse 25. At verse 25. 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 ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand 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 favor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dung hill, but men throw it out.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. The word of God is very pure. May we, His servants, love it. Heavenly Father, we do love Your word. We long to understand it more, to be more obedient to it, and to know you, the author of it, for your word speaks of you.

And so we ask that today this word that we have heard might be mixed with faith and that you would give grace that we may be doers of it and not only hearers And I ask also that you would sanctify my sinful lips to proclaim the riches of your grace. In Jesus' name, Amen. I ask. Well, a few years ago there was a debate in some circles about whether Christ could be your Savior, but not your Lord. You may remember that debate, the Lordship controversy, as it might sometimes be called.

It was an attempt to count as Christians those people who claim to believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, claimed to be His children, claimed to have their sins forgiven through His sacrifice, but who were not living as Christians. Those who were not in submission to the Word of God, the Law of God. They were sometimes called carnal Christians, because their heart and their desires were for this world, for the flesh. They may have gone to church, maybe even most of the time. But when something more interesting arose, something else that they'd rather do that day than they might be absent.

If something interfered with their Christianity, if it was inconvenient, if it meant sacrifice, giving something up, then they might have demurred. Objected to that level of service. If serving Christ was convenient and pleasant, then they were happy to be there. But if there was any significant sacrifice involved, or any significant tearing away from this world, then they were out of there. Well, this passage ought to remove all doubt, if there was any, about the answer to that question.

Can Jesus be your Savior but not your Lord? Jesus says, you cannot be my disciple if you do not forsake everything else. You cannot be my disciple. Luke tells us in the beginning, chapter 2, that Jesus grew in favor with God and with man. He matured as a person.

That means his intellect, his mind, his emotions matured. And he grew in favor with people. And as he entered ministry as a mature man, he was a very effective speaker. People came to hear him. We might say today that he had a high level of emotional intelligence.

Being able to read the situation and being able to speak effectively to it and to the people that were in that situation. Anticipating, you know, sometimes the very things that they might be thinking. And so this led, this emotional maturity in Jesus led to not just being effective, and his effectiveness because of it, led to a power. He had great power among the people. It was a power that the Jewish leaders feared.

They feared this power so much so that on a number of occasions when they wanted to arrest Jesus they didn't because they feared this power that Jesus had among the people. And they recognized this power. And they were afraid of it, and it only made them want to kill and destroy Christ even more. And so there were these great multitudes then that were following Jesus. Because people that are mature, that have mature emotions, that are humble, they're nice people to be around.

They're effective. And Jesus was effective as a speaker and as a person among them. He also did amazing miracles, he had great power. And so there were a lot of people that were following him because this was a cultural phenomenon You know he's a person that could feed 5, 000 people making food out of nothing And so so the multitudes were always flocking to Jesus. But Jesus realized that many of the people that were flocking to Him were doing so for the wrong reasons.

His popularity. His ability to heal people. To make food out of nothing. His ability to even silence the Jewish leaders. All these things made for great entertainment.

But the Kingdom of Heaven is not a political kingdom. It's not advanced by political means. It's not advanced by political power. This is what politicians need. In fact, Proverbs even talks about the glory of a king is in his people.

But The Kingdom of Heaven is not a political kingdom. And Jesus doesn't need crowds of people. He wasn't interested in the crowds in order to gain power through them. That's why politicians want crowds, is they can get power through those crowds. But Jesus doesn't want that kind of power.

He wasn't seeking crowds of admirers and groupies who followed him around and wanted to make him the ruler of Israel. He was seeking disciples. Those who were willing to die for the sake of the Gospel. And so he warned people on many occasions. He warned people what was required of those who would follow him as his disciples.

There is a cost and it's not a small cost, but it is a worthy cost. I had a professor in graduate school who on the first day of class, he had dispensed with all the normal introductory things. And he would launch right into this esoteric lecture. Making it as complex and difficult as he could in the hopes that it would go over everyone's head. Why did he do that?

Well he called it a thinning lecture. He was trying to weed out the people that really weren't interested in hard study. He was hoping that they would leave that class and be afraid and go right to the registrar and drop it. He needed this to say he had quite a reputation in that school. But he was looking for people that were interested in study and in work.

And this is what Jesus does here to this crowd. Great multitudes went after Him. Great crowds are following Him. Jesus never turned the crowds away, but He didn't seek them. Many times, he would try to get away from the crowds.

He would take the disciples and go to a quiet place and the crowds would follow him. And he wouldn't send them away. He would teach them. He would even feed them. But he wasn't looking for them.

And on many occasions, like this one, he would turn to them and say to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father or mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." How is that for an evangelistic outreach? Can't be my disciple if you don't hate your family. Now, that's a Hebrewism to hate family. Jesus is not saying that we are to despise our parents or our children or our siblings. In Matthew 10, we have a parallel passage where Jesus says, 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." There it's saying, love these people more than me.

And that's what this Hebrewism means, to speak of hating somebody in this sense. It means to love them less. Another example would be Jacob and Leah, another example of this Hebrewism. In Genesis it says that Jacob went into Rachel and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he served with Laban still another seven years.

And when it says when the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, that's the New King James. But if you look in the King James, it says when the Lord saw that Leah was hated. The word actually is hate. It's a common word in the Old Testament used many times. And it's usually translated hate.

But in this case, the new King James translated it unloved. Because that's the sense in here. That Leah was loved less than Rachel. In fact, that's what the verse explicitly, before it explicitly says, that he loved Rachel more than Leah. And So the word unloved, or the word hate here, Jesus says, hate your family.

He's speaking in the same sense in which it is said that Jacob hated Leah, that He loved her less than he loved Rachel. And as Jesus says in Matthew 10, then these two verses aren't in conflict. Rather, we need to understand Matthew 10 and this passage in Luke 14 about hating our father and mother. We need to understand them as saying the same thing. It means He who doesn't love me more than these in your family cannot be my disciples.

See, we're to love even our enemies. So Even if because we come to Christ and follow Christ, our own family becomes our enemy, we're still to love them. What Jesus is saying here is that we have to love Him more. More than even our closest relationships. More than any other person.

Our relationship with the Lord has to be more important. And This is a reasonable and a just request, command of God. He's our Creator. He made us. He owns us.

He's the one that's given us everything that we have. The life that we have is from Him. So simply as our Creator, He has that right of total ownership, that right to command our total loyalty, That right to say to us that we need to make our relationship with Him more important than our relationship with any other person. He's also our Redeemer. He's redeeming means to buy us.

He's bought us with His own blood. He's bought us back from bondage to sin and to the evil one. And so He has the legal right as well to ask this of us. To be able to forsake everything, our reputation. Are we willing to follow Jesus if it means that our reputation will be tarnished?

We're starting to see that more now. Where people that simply follow Christ are attacked. They're slandered. They're defamed. Their reputation as a credible scientist is attacked.

And those who are spreading truth are said to be purveyors of falsehoods and what they call disinformation or myths. Are we willing to follow Jesus if it means giving up or losing all of our money. Are we willing to be His disciple, if that's what He asks of us? Are we willing to follow Jesus if it means losing our health? You know, when Paul went on these journeys, they were not always conducive to his health.

There were many deprivations that he experienced that were not healthy, not even including being stoned or beaten. There are many lifelong injuries that come from that. Richard Wormbrant was a man who said, yes, I will follow Christ, even if it means losing my health. And if you haven't read his book, Tortured for Christ, I believe it's in our library. I highly recommend it to you.

That book opens in the first chapter where he and his wife Sabina are sitting in a large hall in Romania, in the capital, and the communists have taken over and they've gathered together all of the religious leaders in an effort to use them to bring the people to accept communism. And one leader after another is coming across the stage, and this is not only a very large assembly, but this meeting was being broadcast across the country. And leader after leader was coming up and praising communism and saying how it was compatible with Christianity and these two religions could get, these two things could coexist. And according to Richard's autobiography, his wife elbowed him and said, "'They're spitting in Christ's face. "'Are you gonna let them do that?' And he said, "'Are you willing to be a widow?

And she said yes. I'd rather be that than have a coward for a husband. And Richard Wurmbrandt arose and got the, was given the mic and he began to challenge the people that were there, the leaders that were there, and the nation that they were abandoning Christ, And that communism was not compatible with Christianity. Of course, it was pretty hard to do anything right in front of everybody. So he sat down.

But He knew that he had spoken against his own health. And sure enough, one day he was going to church. When a car pulls up along the sidewalk, he was walking there, head of his family. Car pulled up, the men jumped out, grabbed him and whisked him away. Nobody knew where he was.

And he spent 13 years in prison being physically tortured because He had been a faithful witness for Jesus Christ. And he was able to, I remember hearing him speak in the 70s. Because of the torture that his body had received in that prison, He wasn't able to stand up and speak. He had to sit down. And because of the torture, the beatings that he had received, he had permanent injuries in his lungs.

And he was continually needing to cough and to clear his body of this congestion. He actually, in a hearing before the United States Senate, removed his shirt and showed Americans the physical scars on his body from the torture that he had received in communist prisons. This was in a time when many people were enamored with communism and they were thinking there was not much wrong with it. In fact, there were even people that left this country to go to Russia because they thought it represented the socialistic ideal. Of course, they were greatly disillusioned.

Many of them never made it back. They paid with their lives for their folly. But he was one of the very first people to come into the West and to physically show the scars of communist torturing of Christians. Are you willing to follow Christ if it means losing your health? Not to mention all the creaturely comforts.

Are you willing to follow Christ if it means living in Houston without an air conditioner? You're willing to follow Christ if it means that you can't see your children or you can't see your parents. You're willing to do what's right and honor Christ before any other relationship. We have people that are paying that price today. Remember Edward Snowden revealed things that were going on in our country.

And as a result he's never going to be able to come back to our country. He didn't, and when he left, he didn't know if he would ever be able to see his family again. Now I don't know if he's a Christian or not. Many of the, I don't think he is, but that's, as Christians are we willing to pay that sacrifice? Andrew Torba founded a company called Gab.

It's a great alternative to Facebook. And if you're looking for an alternative, I recommend it. Andrew Gab was saved as a young boy, but it was later on that he realized what it meant to be a disciple of Christ. They were recently served subpoena by the German government to stop their service, which is a service like Facebook, but they allow people to post the truth. Even if they don't agree with what people are posting, they will allow the people the right to say it as long as it's not breaking God's law.

And he's very forthright about this. He signs every communication that he sends, every post that he puts, he signs Jesus is King. Jesus is King. And so They received this subpoena that they were in violation of these German laws that would prevent them from, prevent their site and the people on it from posting a lot of the things that they post. And they could change their policy like Facebook and every other major company has done and start removing all these posts that were offending the German government, which is what the German government was telling them to do.

Or they could block the IP addresses into Germany, which is what a lot of his friends and even his legal team is doing, was recommending that he do. He says, okay, well just don't let anybody in Germany log into your server. Or he could say, well this is a different, I'm not a German, don't live in Germany, I'm not under German laws. And so there's no obligation to obey that law, even if it was a law that ought to be obeyed if I lived in Germany. And he decided that he's going to take that option but that came that comes with great risk.

He's now never going to be able to leave this country. Any other country that he would go to He could be arrested and extradited to Germany to stand trial for his breaking of their laws because they are upset with his Christianity as every other organization in this country is. He's been denied the ability to even open a bank account. Banks have said, well, you can't have an account with us. Visa long ago said, you can't use our credit cards.

If you want to buy something from them, you have to mail him a paper check. How is his server still up? Because several years ago when he was removed from Visa, he realized what was happening. He had the foresight to say, you know, we need to own our own servers. We can't use Amazon's cloud service or somebody else's cloud.

We need to own our own. And so that's what he has done. There are many people that would love to destroy him, but he owns his own servers. He owns his own payment systems. And so far in the Lord's providence, they haven't been able to shut Him down yet.

Like they've been able to stop everybody else. But it's because He believes Jesus Christ is King. Jesus Christ is King, No one else. And He's willing to say, yes, I'm willing to never be able to leave this country again. I'm willing to never be able to see my family again.

To be a faithful witness, a disciple of Jesus Christ. The second prerequisite for being a disciple of Jesus Christ, is a willingness to serve. Willing to serve. Whoever does not bear his cross cannot be my disciple. We must be willing to serve Christ.

That's not saying I'm willing to suffer for Him. It's saying I'm willing to serve Him. See, one is a passive. If people persecute me, I accept that. This is something that's active.

I am willing to go out and serve. I am willing to incur risk to serve Christ. I am willing to follow Him actively. Christ demands our complete devotion to Him. If we are not willing to bear our cross, Jesus says, you cannot be my disciple.

We can't be those who are willing to just float with the stream. Jesus says we have to be those who bear our cross. Now what's the difference? You ever think about the difference between work and play? What's the difference between when you're working and when you're playing.

Well, is it being paid versus unpaid? Well, some people are paid to play baseball. You might raise the question, are they working or are they playing? Some people work on their, they might work on their golf swing. Are they working or playing?

Is it the difference between being skilled at it and being not skilled at it? You know, I might try and play with my air conditioner. My son might come along and work on it. Is it the difference between being skilled at it or being unskilled at it? Well I don't think it actually is any of those things.

What makes work work and what makes play play is that we have a commitment to show up where we're working. We have a commitment to do it, to show up and do something, even if that's not what we'd want to do at the moment, Even if we actually would prefer to do something else. There's a commitment there. So whether we're paid for it or not, whether we're good at it or not, what makes work work is that we have to do it. We have an obligation to do it.

We've obligated ourselves to do it in some way. Whereas when we're playing, it's what we're doing because that's what we want to do at the moment and if we don't want to do it anymore, then we don't do it anymore. And I would submit that's the difference between what it means to work and what it means to play. There's a commitment involved. And Jesus is saying if we want to be His disciples, we have to be committed to serving Him.

We need to look at it like we look at our work, that we get up and we do it every day, whether we feel like it or not. When the alarm clock goes off and we need to get up to meet our obligation to go to work, we do that. Jesus is saying if we're not willing to treat following Christ in the same way, then we cannot be His disciple. That means the things that we do, the spiritual disciplines, that we look at that as work. Whether it's our time of prayer, whether it's the family worship, whether it's reading the Scriptures.

And we look at that as this is what we have committed to do. And if we're not willing to commit to these things, then Jesus says, you cannot be my disciple. See, when we take our cross, It is not simply receiving difficulty or trials that come our way. That is actively going out and doing something, taking risk, knowing that it may bring difficulty. And having the choice that we don't have to go do that.

We don't have to take that risk. To take up our cross is to say, yes, I am willing to take that risk. I know that's a risk. I know there's danger in that. I know there's difficulty in that.

I know there is risk of loss. There is risk of harm. There is risk of damage to my health or wealth or reputation. But I'm willing to take that risk for Christ's sake. The third thing is that not only is there a, not only is there a making Christ and His Kingdom more important than anything else, and secondly a willingness to serve and a commitment to do so, thirdly Jesus says there has to be a willingness to sacrifice in the service of Christ.

To sacrifice. We leave our comforts to follow Christ, knowing that our service may involve loss, even the loss of our life. The word for witness, a witness in the Greek is the word we get our word martyr from. A martyr is somebody who was faithful, a faithful witness even if it meant the loss of their life. This counting of the cost is not something that Jesus hides from his disciples and followers.

He's very upfront about it. This isn't the first time Jesus has made statements like this. We saw this, I think it was in chapter nine as well, when Jesus made similar statements about what people would have to do that desired to follow Him. So many businesses today that aim to get people into something without fully revealing what all is involved in it. You get their interest, they pique their interest, they want to draw them in, and then gradually show them what is really involved, the commitment that's really involved.

So there's an under-promising initially, because if they told the truth, nobody would be interested. But Jesus isn't that way. He's very upfront here about what the cost is. Even your life, He said. Yes, and his own life also.

If he's not willing to hate his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. So what are the costs? We are to be those who count the cost. He's not telling us to jump in ignorance. He's saying count the cost, count the cost.

A few years ago, maybe about 10 years ago now, the Rifka Barry's story kind of broke on the national headline. She was a girl that was born in Sri Lanka to a Muslim family who came to the United States at age five to get medical care because her brother had thrown an airplane at her and it took out her eye. And she became blind in that eye. So they moved to the United States when she was eight and settled in Ohio and when she was 13, she was saved. She became a Christian through the witness of friends at school.

But she had to hide her faith. She had to conceal her Bible. She had to sneak away to go to church because as a Muslim family that recently moved from Sri Lanka, her family, her parents were very hostile, very hostile toward her faith. And finally, four years later at 17, she snuck, concerned that they might seek to take her life in an honor killing. She fled away.

She found a family in Florida. Well, it became a national headline because of what she was alleging about the danger that she felt toward her life. But the people that helped her because she was a minor were actually breaking the law and helping her to flee her own parents. So it became quite a conundrum and became a national legal snarl. Thankfully she never was forced back to her parents' house, which was a possibility at one point.

But she was never able to have another conversation with her family after she left. She later wrote a book about it called Out of the Dark, Into the Light, I believe. It's called Into the Light, it's her story. Story of how she gave up, sacrificed her family and the relationship with her family. Or just read Fox's Book of Martyrs for story after story of what Christ's disciples have been willing to sacrifice in order to be Christ's disciple, to be a faithful witness.

When Polycarp was brought before the procouncil, He was urged to have respect for your age. And he was urged to swear by the genius of Caesar, repent and say, away with the atheist. These Christians were called atheists because they didn't believe in the gods of Rome. And so then Polycarp with solemn countenance looked upon the whole multitude of lawless heathens that were in the stadium and waved his hand to them in groaning. And looking up to heaven, he said, away with the atheists.

But when the magistrate pressed him hard and said, swear the oath, and I will release thee, revile Christ, Polycarp said, for score and six years I have been his servant. And he has done me no wrong, how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" See, that's the cost? That's the cost. What's the gain? Jesus says we're to count the cost and go into this service knowing the cost, but what's the gain?

He who would be a follower of Christ must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Well, again, we don't have enough time here this morning to go through all of that which we gain, but we gain peace with God. And through that peace, we gain peace with one another. We're able to forgive, to release the debts that others owe against us, those who have sinned against us. Those outside of Christ can't really do that.

We have fellowship with God. We can be comforted. We have the comfort of the Holy Spirit who dwells with us, who comes alongside as the paraclete. We have victory over the evil one. Those outside of Christ aren't promised that.

They have no way to defeat Satan and to escape his power. But we, as those who are disciples of Christ, have been promised that we can share in his victory and that as we resist him, he will flee. We have freedom. We have freedom. Freedom, remember, is the ability to obey the law of God, and we have that through Jesus Christ.

We also have the honor of the Father. Jesus said that, He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Hate, that's another example of the word hate, being loveless. If anyone serves me, let him follow me where I am, where my servant will be also. Where I am, there my servant will be also.

If anyone serves me, him my father will honor. We have the honor of the Father, the Heavenly Father. We have the honor of being used by the Father. Jesus said to those that came, He would make them fishers of men. Jesus also proclaimed that out of His disciples would flow a river of living water out of their bellies.

That's to those who are Christ's disciples. We bear fruit and we accumulate true riches in heaven. Riches that can never be destroyed. Riches that our minds cannot fathom. Hasn't entered into our mind what those riches might even be.

The eye hasn't seen them, nor the mind imagined them. Paul said that when he made this cost-benefit comparison, He said that he considered the sufferings of this present time not worthy, not even worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us. See for most of us, yes for all of us, there comes a point in our life where we will be faced with a choice, Jesus or the comforts of this life. And the choice that we make speaks about our love for Him and our being his disciple. Take up our cross.

Take up our cross and follow Jesus means simply commitment. Commitment to the point of giving up our hopes, our dreams, our possessions, our wealth, our riches, our reputation, and even willing even to give up our life if that's what he asks of us. This is the only attitude, This is the only acceptable attitude of a true disciple. Without it, Jesus says, you cannot be my disciple. May God give us the grace.

We don't need to worry about that day, because He will give us the grace for that day, if it comes. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace to us in Jesus Christ. We thank you for your love to us and we know that is sufficient for our every need. And so we know that your power is made perfect in our weakness.

So we glory, Lord, in our weaknesses in order that your power may rest upon us. And we ask for your grace to count the cost of being your disciple. And we ask also Lord that you would give us courage. And we might not be afraid or fear any of these things that others have had to sacrifice. For Lord, you promised to give us grace sufficient for our present daily need.

And so this is our trust and this is our hope and this is our, this is Lord in you is where we put our faith. In Jesus' name, Amen.