Luke 14.25-35

“I am so hungry that I could eat a horse.”

Can a person eat an entire horse?

No!

“My Dad is older than dirt.”

Is is possible for your Dad to be older than dirt?

No!

“My backpack weighs a ton.”

Does the backpack actually weigh a ton? 

No!

“I was dying of laugher.”

If the person is still alive making this statement, did they die of laughter?

No!

“She’s as skinny as a toothpick.”

Is it possible for a human being to be as skinny as a toothpick?

No!

Are people who make these statements lying?

No!

People that make statements like the ones above are using a method of communication that ridiculously over-exaggerates a situation to make a point about what they are experiencing.

In this morning’s text from The Gospel of Luke, one of the four biographies of Jesus contained in the New Testament portion of the Bible, we are going to hear Jesus teach us about the seriousness of the Christian life using a few statements that may seem very harsh, but are, for the most part over-exaggerations used to get your mind to understand a very fine point about living after finding yourself trusting in Him as Lord and Savior.

Let’s hear from our Biblical text now.

Luke 14:25–35 says this:

[25] 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.” (ESV)

This piece of history that we just read begins by telling us that great crowds were following Jesus.  

Why would crowds of people follow and chase after Jesus wherever he went?

Well, there are at least three reasons people wanted to be close to Jesus.

The first group of people followed Jesus because they were intrigued by his teaching.  They were hearing things in Jesus’ preaching and teaching that they had never heard before from a person who had a clear confidence and a strange authority when saying things about God the Father in Heaven, the destruction that one’s Sin causes, and the way to forgiveness and reconciliation with God in Heaven.   Even if they didn’t believe what Jesus was saying, they wanted to make sure they were witnesses to these seemingly new and outrageous teachings.

The second group of people followed Jesus because of the miracles He was performing.  These people either saw or heard about Jesus healing the sick from their diseases and sometimes bringing people back from the dead.  This group wanted to be close to Jesus to hopefully get something good from Him, like having their every day problems eradicated.

And, the third group of people following Jesus were doing so because through the opening of their eyes and the removal of the Sin soaked scales on their heart, they found themselves truly believing that Jesus was the promised Savior, God-in-the-flesh, come to rescue them and provide them the only possible opportunity for being brought back into a right relationship with their Creator and Redeemer which would culminate in being welcomed into their eternal home of Heaven, where all things will be made perfect in every way.  

The first two groups of people have Earthly Eyes.  They only see what they can get out of Jesus in this world.  

The third group of people have Eternal Eyes.  They see clearly that Jesus is their Savior who makes it possible for them to be forgiven by God for their Sin, made righteous and perfect in every way, and have hope in their final resting place where there will be no more tears, no more suffering, no more sickness, and no more pain.  In that eternal place there will only be rejoicing, celebration, and untainted friendship with God and all other disciples of Jesus Christ from every point in history.

Following that preliminary information of Jesus’ movement and people following Him, we hear some teaching that Jesus shares the crowds of people (and by extension, us today).

This teaching of Jesus is definitely classified under the heading, “The Hard to Deal With Sayings of Jesus.”  I mean, after, all, Jesus is telling you that truly following Him the way that God desires you to follow Him includes four very difficult and seemingly impossible tasks.

First, Jesus says that if you don’t hate your family—your father, your mother, your spouse, your children, and your siblings—you cannot be one of His disciples, which means you can’t be forgiven of your Sin and made righteous for eternal life.  

Second, Jesus tells you that every day of your life you have to willing pick up your cross, an instruction of torture and death, otherwise you cannot be one of His disciples, which means you can’t be forgiven of your Sin and made righteous for eternal life.  

Third, Jesus tells you that every day of your life, you have to do a very deep and honest self-evaluation, asking yourself if you truly have the heart and mind to hate your family and be willing to die for what is right according to God’s standards for life and love.  If you are unwilling to give up the things that are unGodly and make you guilty of disobeying God, you can’t be forgiven of your Sin and made righteous for eternal life.  

And, fourthly, Jesus tells you that you have to turn your back on all that you have.  You can’t find comfort in your money or your possessions or you positions of power or your good deeds.  If you are unwilling to renounce all that you have in this life in order to put Jesus and His way of life first in all circumstances and situations, you can’t be forgiven of your Sin and made righteous for eternal life.  

So, how do with deal with Jesus’ hard sayings here.

Well, first, we need to understand a teaching method called, “Hyperbole.”  Hyperbole is the using of grossly exaggerated statements to make a point.  

I gave some examples at the beginning of this message. But to refresh your memory at this point, common hyperboles that you are most likely familiar with are:

“I am so hungry that I could eat a horse.”

“My Dad is older than dirt.”

“This bag weighs a ton.”

“I was dying of laugher.”

“She’s as skinny as a toothpick.”

As we see this morning, Jesus often uses hyperbolic sayings in His teaching about the Kingdom of God and the living as a member of the Kingdom of God on earth. What we have to note is that the hearer of hyperbolic teaching is not meant to take the sayings completely literally.   

Now, knowing that this is a hyperbolic statement and that Jesus doesn’t actually want us to treat our family members with cruelty, that Jesus doesn’t want us to nail ourselves to a cross in an act of asceticism, that Jesus doesn’t want us to walk away from our homes, jobs, and possessions to become a homeless nomad, what exactly is Jesus telling us?

To summarize all four of Jesus’ points buried in the overly exaggerated teaching statements, we can say, that in order to be a disciple of Christ and therefore, a child of God and an eternal resident of God’s Kingdom, we need to choose God’s ways first and see Jesus and the world around us through Eternal Eyes.  

We need to see that who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for us benefit, us today, tomorrow, and forever.  God isn’t a genie in a bottle who will take your problems away here and now.  God is a Savior who came to you in the person and work of Jesus Christ, most notably in His death on the cross to forgive your Sin and His rising from the dead, on what we now call Easter Morning, to give you confidence that God has made it possible for you too to defeat death and rise from the dead into the comfort of His Heavenly Kingdom.

Jesus is telling us that without question, Jesus and the ways of God’s Kingdom, most clearly defined in the Ten Commandments, need to be our number one priority every day of our life.  

If we look at the majority of our Bible translations, this passage of Scripture is usually labeled something like, “The Cost of Discipleship,” or, “The Cost of Following Jesus.”  

When we see those headings for passages of Scripture we have to remember that they were not in the original text.  Those Scriptural divisions were added later on by those that translated this text from it’s original Greek into our English language.

Because the headings are man-made, I do not pay much attention to them because they usually cause us to focus our attention on the idea in the heading and sometimes miss the real point of the text.

That being said, if we go along with this text as Jesus only laying out rules for discipleship, that is, things we have to do in order for God to love us, we miss the good news in the text.  And, most of the time, end up, rightfully so, feeling like a complete failure.

We end up feeling like a complete failure because preaching a message or teaching this passage with the idea that “As a Christian, you have to do these things or else!,” completely erases God’s love and grace from the text.  Focusing on what you have to do teaches that God’s love for you in based on your ability to do the right things for God.  And, when we believe that false teaching, we will also lose confidence and hope in God’s never-ending love for us because we will never every be able to follow God’s rules 100% of the time due to our earthly connection to the corrupted flesh.  Even though faith in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection makes us fully perfect in God’s eternal eyes, we will not experience that absolute perfection until we leave this world and are in His presence.

That being said, if I were to title this text, using Jesus-centered, Gospel-centered, Good News-centered eyes, eternal eyes, I would title it, “The Cost Jesus Paid to Forgive My Sin.”

When God stepped off of His throne in Heaven, and came to this world in the physical person of Jesus Christ, Jesus prioritized God’s will over every one of his family members and friends and even His own life.  Jesus followed God’s commands to live perfectly, die on the cross, and walk out of the grave alive after 3 days, so that You could be forgiven of Your Sin, made righteous in God’s eyes, and welcomed home into God’s Kingdom.

Jesus literally picked up His cross, denying any temptations in the flesh to walk away from God’s difficult path for Him, and carried it all the way to Golgotha, where he was crucified for your Sins and their forgiveness.

Jesus considered the cost to Him personally, which was His very life given over to death to pay the price for your disobedience to God, and He freely and willingly chose to die through the excruciating pain of crucifixion so that You can be made right with God forever.  Jesus always chose Your good over His own.

I always want to be as honest as I can with you.  So, yes, a life lived with faith in Jesus is sometimes a life where you will experience suffering and even have to choose suffering as you seek to do the good of God in a world that promotes the evil of ungodly Sin.

But, once you find yourself loved by God through the person and work of Jesus Christ for you, the new heart you are given with the new eternal eyes that you are given, give you confidence that God has always been and will always be in control of all things for your ultimate good.

So, since Jesus saw you with eternal eyes and prioritized your forgiveness and reconciliation to God over His own earthly family members, trust in Jesus with eternal eyes and prioritize loving God and loving others in your daily life.

Since Jesus saw you with eternal eyes and prioritized your forgiveness and reconciliation with God over the temptations of this world that offered Him fame, power, and wealth, trust in Jesus with eternal eyes and prioritize loving God and loving others in your daily life.

Since Jesus saw you with eternal eyes and prioritized your forgiveness and reconciliation with God over His own good in this world and died on the cross to the pay the price for your Sin against God, trust in Jesus with eternal eyes and prioritize loving God and loving others in your daily life.

And, since Jesus saw you with eternal eyes and prioritized your forgiveness and reconciliation with God over accumulated stuff and personal possessions, trust in Jesus with eternal eyes and prioritize loving God and loving others in your daily life.

Jesus came with eternal eyes on God’s mission and lived for your good and the good of the entire world.

Join Jesus on God’s mission this week and live with eternal eyes for the glory of God by living for the good of others and the good of the entire world.

This is the Word of God for you today.

This is the Grace of God for you today.

Amen.

Reverend Fred Scragg V.

September 7, 2025.