The Divine Crash

Today’s sermon brought some heat with it.  It went very well and I would love for you to listen to it but unfortunately my recorder died 2 minutes into my sermon so there is no recording or podcast this week.  However, you can still read my notes and tell me what you think about it.

A few things First:

1. This message was born out of last weeks sermon.  I got more emails, comments, and complaints on that sermon than any other sermon.

2. Every single comment said “Jesus would never tell us to hate our family, that is unbiblical.”

3. For this I must apologize on behalf of all pastors/church leaders.  If you were only taught that following Jesus is about blessing and happiness you have been mislead.

4. I blame myself, this kind of complaint happens because people don’t know their Bible.  Which means a few things.  You aren’t reading it and I’m not teaching it. So from now on every teaching will not be topical but will be straight teaching and we need to begin working through these verses on our own.

5. I don’t claim to say the last word on any topic.  I want to give you the first word and you finish the conversation, go home, get your Bible and talk about what I said.  But that means you have to listen.  A sermon is not something that simply floats over your head and sanctifies you.  It is something that gets inside of you and stirs deep in your soul until you have to act on it. This only happens if you are listening with an expectation that God has words for you today.

6. Therefore, if you have questions….ask me.  If you aren’t sure about my sermon I post all my notes and my audio recording online.  If you keep having questions don’t spread vicious rumors or untruths about me, the Bible, or my family.  I don’t bite, just ask me.

7. Lastly, I have printed and copied a guide for you about how to read your Bible, not for knowledge but to grow closer to God which will cause knowledge. It is available in the back.

Prayer: God, I have a message, but so you do.  May your message win out.

Scripture: Luke 14:25-33

So then, our text for today has a few interesting things going on.

1. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to face the cross.

2. The crowd following him thinks he is going to Jerusalem to take over and set up a kingdom by force.

3. Every time Jesus gets a large crowd around him, He says hard words that make people leave.

4. Jesus says that if you want to follow him to the cross it will cost everything.

Jesus says that unless you hate your mother, father, wife, son, daughter, and even your own life you cannot call yourself a Christian.

Don’t misunderstand this.  In the Greek Jesus uses the word: Miseoo which literally means to utterly hate and detest. These are strong words.  How are we to explain this from a God who is love?

Let me show you:

When Amanda and I first got married we were broke, dead broke.  We lived on Hamburger Helper for the first year of marriage, we had no money for food let alone anything else.  That Valentine’s day we decided that since we were so broke we weren’t going to do anything special for each other.

I came home from work and found this hand-made valentine’s day card. She spent hours on it and it is handmade and I felt like a heel because I went with what we agreed to and didn’t get anything for her.

That is huge love.  To take your time, energy, and effort to make something for someone you love. Right?

Now, the valentine’s day after that we were still broke, but we had a little bit of money so I went to the grocery store and bought her a 79 cent card.

Now, in contrast which one is the better gift? The handmade card.

Which one shows more love? The handmade card.

Which one pales in comparison and if put next to each other doesn’t show love it would show a distant second place that looks like hate?  The 79 cent junk card.

Now that card still showed I loved my wife but in comparison to her handmade card it looks like I don’t care and I hate her.

This is exactly what Jesus is talking about.

The ones you love the most gets your time, effort, thoughts, and your energy.

Jesus is saying if you follow Jesus then you must love him more than anyone else….to the point that it looks like you hate everyone else.

Jesus mentions your father, mother, brother, sister, wife and children.  All of these people are loved without condition and by their title will require a significant amount of time….Why isn’t husband listed??

Jesus is saying that if you call yourself a Christian then Jesus gets all your time, effort, thoughts, and energy.  Anything else is idolatry and you are not a Christian.

It’s like this:  Someone points a gun at you and says if you tell me you love Jesus then I will shoot your family.  What do you say? If you say you aren’t a Christian then you are not a Christian.

That is extreme but maybe it is more like this: God calls you to overseas missions work in Zimbabwae and you say no because it isn’t responsible for your wife and kids.  How would we get them schooling? Health Insurance? Friends? If you choose to stay because it would be hard on your family then you are choosing your family over Jesus and Jesus says you are not his disciple.

Or maybe it is like this: God has called you to be a missionary to China and you decide not to go because you could be killed….If you do that then you are not a Christian.  If you love your own life more than following Jesus then your salvation is at risk.

Or maybe like this:  You know in your soul that God called you to be a pastor but your family says “there is no money in it.” So instead you listen to them and get a regular job with regular hours.  You have a nice car, good pay, and an easy life but inside you are dying because you choose your family over Jesus….Jesus says you are not a Christian.

In Philippians 3:8 Paul writes that he counts everything as skubalon in comparison to know Jesus.  Depending on your translation skubalon is translated as:

1. Sewer Trash

2. Dog Dung

4. Rubbish.

In Greek it literally means that in comparison to Jesus all things are equal to the excrement of animals.  The closest word we have to this is a four letter word starting with S that I can’t say in church.

But it seems that if you aren’t willing to love Jesus more than above all else then you are not a Christian.

Now, these are hard words to swallow but they are also life giving words.

This will revolutionize your entire life, your family, your friends, and your very way of life.

What happens when you lean on your kids more than anything else? They are your entire life?…. Can you say helicopter parent?  This is disasterous for your children.  Child expert, Michelle Borba, says that helicopter parenting leads to college students who can’t function life and are 3 times as likely to attempt suicide.

When you lean on your parents for everything you become attached to them and unable to learn self-reliance, and when your parents let you down, or pass-away you become unable to function in life.

Putting your entire life into a person will let you down, hurt you, and leave you confused at what to do next.  We often see this in married couples who are now single after a significant amount of time.  They have no idea what to do next.

Instead if we put our entire being into Jesus then our parents, friends, family, and children are put into their proper perspective.  We look forward to the big picture when we discipline our kids.  We look to the big picture when we call our parents.  We look to the big picture when our wife wants to go to church and we don’t.

When we put people onto the thrones in our life they will say they feel smothered, mommy’d, treated like a baby, or cramped, crowded, and isolated from others.  When we put Jesus on the throne in our life he takes his rightful place.

Jesus never changes, yet people do.  People will fail you, Jesus never will. When you trust in him with your entire life then the people you love get their rightful seat, not on the throne of your life.

If you love anything above Jesus then you are not a Christian. Period. Not sure what to tell you.

Some people here still believe that there is a Bible verse that says “Jesus helps those who help themselves.” There isn’t….but there is a verse that says you are only a Christian if you love Jesus and hate everything else.

So then, if you have loved something more than Jesus you need to ask for forgiveness and you need to stop loving that person, thing, or self that is above Jesus. If you don’t your salvation is seriously in jeopardy.

So then, if you love Jesus more than anything else it will put everything and everyone else into its proper perspective and revolutionize the way you interact with the whole world, because you are no longer leaning on your spouse for security you are leaning on Jesus which means if your spouse disappoints you with a pathetic Valentine’s card that is okay because Jesus is where your security comes from.  It also means, that if you love Jesus more than anything else, it becomes your responsibility to lead those around you to love Jesus more than you.  So that is why you bring your kids to church, pray with your spouse, and do everything in relation to bringing those around to a place where they love Jesus more than they love you.

So, let us close in prayer and may you go out and love Jesus so much that you hate everyone else around you in a way that brings them closer to loving Jesus more than they love you.

Benediction: the Gospel is beautiful and offensive and it MUST be both. if it’s not, your Jesus may as well be Tinker Bell.

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Sermon by RevBT