I'm going to preach on the topic of forsaking family to follow Jesus.
! Forsaking family to follow Jesus.
There's a lot of hard sayings Jesus has. This is one of them.
! Most of my text, the majority of my text is going to come from Luke 14.
So I'm going to read this passage and riff on it for a little bit.
And then I have some supplementals to follow.
But the bulk of my passage is Luke 14.
So I'm going to turn there. I'm just going to read it.
So Luke 14. If you have a Bible, I encourage you to go ahead and open it.
We'll read through this here.
It's a little bit of a longer section, so I don't want to lose people by just reading it out loud.
Luke chapter 14, starting in verse 12.
This is Jesus. He's at a dinner.
Okay.
He, meaning Jesus, he said also to the man who had invited him,
When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbors,
lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.
But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed,
because they cannot repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.
When one of those who were applying to table with him heard these things, he said to him,
Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.
But he said to him,
A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.
And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited,
Come, for everything is now ready.
But they all alike began to make excuses.
The first said to him,
I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it.
Please have me excused.
And another said,
I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them.
Please have me excused.
And another said,
I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
So the servant came and reported these things to his master.
Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant,
Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and the crippled and blind and lame.
And the servant said,
Sir, what you have commanded has been done, and still there is room.
And the master said to the servant,
Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.
For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.
I'm going to pause there.
I'm going to continue this here.
But I think this sets great context.
There's a verse I want to focus on.
It's going to come in this next section.
But I think everything we just read sets a really helpful context for what Jesus is about to say.
And the context is, he gives a call to mission.
So you guys, when you're hospitable, when you're giving a feast,
don't focus on people who are going to repay you, essentially.
People you're comfortable with.
You know?
You pat each other's backs, relationally speaking.
Okay?
It's a give and tip.
Use it for people who have nothing to give you.
It's a call to mission.
It's essentially, use what you've been given,
not to benefit yourself with these familiar, comfortable relationships that, basically, they feed you.
Instead, use it to further the gospel.
It's my interpretation of what he's saying here.
Okay.
And then someone says, you know, yeah, blessed be, you know, anyone who eats in the kingdom of God.
And he gives this wonderful example, a parable of this great banquet.
And he reiterates the same thing.
But this time you see the introduction of excuses.
The first people he invites, they all by one consent begin to make excuses.
Verse 18 and 20.
And you see that the excuses are good things.
They're not bad things.
They're not, I got to go gamble at the casino.
You know?
I got to go fornicate.
You know?
Sorry, please excuse me from the kingdom of God.
I got to go live in licentiousness.
No, no.
It's just like, hey, I got a job.
You know, I'm too busy, man.
Or I have a wife.
These are good things.
These are God things.
These are things that God commands us.
First of all, he gives these things.
They're good.
They're not sinful.
And then he commands us to be faithful with them.
Okay?
But these are the things that are given as an excuse for not answering the call to this banquet.
Which is a picture of eternal life in Christ.
And also the fellowship of his mission.
You know?
So, that's the context.
I'm going to continue on here.
Verse 25.
Now great crowds accompanied him.
And he turned and said to them,
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,
Yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
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.
Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to mock him, saying,
This man began to build and was not able to finish.
Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able to 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000?
And if not, while the others get a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
So, therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
So, the main text that I'm going to focus on is verse 26.
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters,
Yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
But I think the rest of that passage is important, too, because you see this imagery of basically setting out to do a big thing,
and you can't finish this thing because you didn't count the cost at the front end.
You didn't meet the prerequisites.
You kicked that decision down the road, okay?
Ah, that's kind of hard.
I'm going to kick that one down the road, okay?
I'm going to try to follow Jesus, and I'll work out, you know, this whole really kind of weird thing he says about hating your family
and not being able to follow Jesus unless you hate your family and your own life.
That's, I don't know, that's kind of hard.
I'll kick that down the road.
I'll believe in Jesus.
I'll go on serving the kingdom, preaching the gospel, be part of the church,
and I don't know.
Eventually, I'll understand.
I'll cross that bridge when I get there.
Guess what?
You won't finish.
That's the point of the passage.
If you don't count the cost on the front end, you're not finishing, man.
It's impossible, okay?
There's something weighty about what he's saying here that you can't get around, okay?
Every Christian's got to deal with this.
So, anyway, that's going to be the purpose of my sermon is to deal with this
and to think through this and try to understand what is it Jesus is talking about
and how does it apply to our life, okay?
So, what's going on in verse 26?
This just seems so contradictory to so much in the New Testament about loving our families,
divine order, priorities.
Like, what is, like, we're supposed to love everybody, right?
Why does Jesus say you got to hate these people who are the closest to you?
I'm going to read a couple passages that I think kind of shed light on this.
First is Psalm 17, verse 13 through 15.
This is David speaking of men of this world.
Arise, O Lord, confront him, subdue him.
Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword, from men by your hand, O Lord,
from men of the world whose portion is in this life.
You fill their womb with treasure.
They are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants.
Okay, so I'm going to pause there.
That's speaking of men of this world, the wicked.
It doesn't say anything about gross sin.
What he's speaking of is what they value, okay?
What are their basic values?
What are the basic values of people in this world who are wicked, who are alienated from the life of God,
whose inheritance is not in the next life, but whose inheritance is in this life?
Children.
They leave their abundance for their infants.
They have good inheritances for their kids.
They think about their kids.
They think about their grandkids.
This is where their value system, this is where their heart is.
She's like, okay, those are good things, right?
Okay, well, what's David, the righteous man?
Like, where's his value system at?
He shares it.
He goes on to say,
David has a different thing on his heart.
Him.
The Lord.
So, in other words,
men of this world say family is number one.
Okay?
It's number one.
Family is everything.
A Christian says God's number one.
A believer has made an exchange of affections that rule the seat of their heart.
They have a totally different worldview that has been renewed by the Holy Spirit,
where Jesus has preeminence.
And it doesn't eliminate family.
It doesn't eliminate value from family or any of those things.
But it transforms it to be Christ-centered.
So, anyway, I think that's a good verse.
Romans 1.25 says,
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie,
and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator,
who is blessed forever.
It's a form of idolatry to love God's creation
and to worship God's creation above and beyond him.
This is an evidence of our idolatrous nature,
is that we creature worship.
Okay?
And we extra creature worship with the things that are more and more valuable to us.
And family is a big one.
It's baked in.
It's in our hard code.
This is like foundational value system is me and my own.
Okay?
And it's good.
That's why it's so hard to argue with.
Okay?
Christians are known for being family-centric
and for holding family in high esteem.
But that's kind of a catch-22,
because then you can have this idolatry just live on
and permeate and never go addressed.
And so Jesus just hits this head on.
This is, I believe this is what he's getting at, basically.
He's getting at this prioritization of family in our hearts
over and above the preeminence of Christ.
So, Romans goes on to say in that same chapter
that these people, these same people who worshipped
and served the creature rather than the creator,
says that though they know God's righteous decree
that those who practice such things deserve to die,
they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.
So, I believe this is what Jesus is hammering.
He doesn't give any qualifications to it.
He just says you have to need your family.
And you're kind of left with this shock of like,
how do I interpret that?
You know?
But it's shocking for a reason.
And I think I've read a lot of different interpretations
of this passage.
And I don't, we got to be careful with it.
There's a way of handling, like even how we define hate.
A lot of people who handle this passage
will just try to redefine hate, you know?
It's like, well, it's relative love, you know?
It's loving Jesus way more than you love your family,
but you still got to love your family.
And I get what they're saying,
but there's something about letting Jesus' word
just hit like he says it.
And it cuts and it exposes what's going on in our heart.
And I guess I do have some thoughts
on how this is exegeted a little bit,
but I think it's important for us
to realize that Jesus didn't qualify what he said.
He just said, he said, hey,
if you love your family more than me,
you are not worthy of being my disciple.
If you come after me and you don't hate your family,
you're not worthy of being my disciple.
And I think just for sake of, you know,
capturing the spirit of it,
friends and family, okay?
Those who are near and dear to us,
the relationships in our life that are right here, okay?
They're the ones I can't live without.
You got to realize that the Lord's going to go right for it, okay?
And to follow Jesus, you got to let it go.
You got to let it go.
That's what he's pointing to.
Okay, I am way behind here.
Okay.
So what's the solution?
The fact of the matter is we're all in this.
This is basic idolatry.
This is, we're born into this idolatry.
Not a single person in this room is excluded from this.
This is not something that's just like, oh, yeah, you know,
you know, Michael just really deals with the family idolatry part
and Judah doesn't, you know?
No.
This is just like, he's speaking to all of the people in the world
because Adam, our natural father that we all came from,
he has this value system.
Remember, who did he choose over God?
Eve.
So we got it honest, all right?
Everybody's in the same boat.
How do we get out of this boat?
Do we just try to pray this away, you know?
Do we try to fast and pray the idolatry out of our heart?
I mean, it's good to fast and pray and seek the Lord for freedom in these things.
There's a much more foundational solution that the Lord has.
And it is the gospel.
There's the aspect of the gospel that deals with this.
I'm going to share a few verses on this.
2 Corinthians 5, verse 14 through 17.
For the love of Christ controls us because we've concluded this,
that one has died for all, therefore all have died.
And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves,
but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
So when Jesus died, we died.
Okay?
So this old idolatrous person that we got from our dad,
that we got organically, that we didn't ask for,
but we just came into the world being that person
who just idolizes family above and beyond the Lord and everything,
he died.
When Jesus died, that person died.
And if you're in Christ, this is true for you.
So you already got it, basically, is my point.
You have a solution already.
Your old man was crucified with him, is what it says in Romans 6.
He was crucified.
He's dead.
Therefore, when we go on,
from now on, therefore,
continuing in that 2 Corinthians 5 passage,
in light of this truth,
we regard no one according to the flesh.
Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh,
we regard him thus no longer.
Therefore, if anyone's in Christ,
he is a new creation.
The old has passed away,
the new has come.
Jesus set us free from this.
Okay?
He took away the old man
who is completely enslaved to this worldview,
and he made a new creation.
And that new creation is part of a new family.
It says in Colossians 1, 17 through 18,
he, meaning Jesus, is before all things,
and in him all things fold together.
And he's the head of the body of the church.
He is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead,
that in everything he might be preeminent.
Another way of saying preeminent is first place.
Some translations render it that,
that he might have first place in everything.
So, the Lord dealt with this problem 2,000 years ago on the cross.
Okay?
That is the solution to our present problem,
is to recognize and believe this to be true.
That when Jesus died,
I died and I was crucified
to my earthly relationships
as they are sinful and warped
and messed up by the fall.
in such a way that the power of it
to rule my heart and my mind
and my affections
has been totally crucified
on the cross of Jesus.
And when Jesus rose from the dead,
he rose me
and all of you who are in Christ
up with him
and he's first.
He has first place.
He just is.
Okay?
So, he already has first place,
I guess is the point.
Okay?
We don't have to make Jesus have first place.
He has first place
and he fought us
and we have no rights
to let anything else
have first place in our life.
He's king.
He has total dominion.
The surrender
is an unconditional surrender.
He died for all
so that all who live
would no longer live for themselves
but for him.
So, he purchased us.
That's the point.
He purchased us
and now we're his.
Okay?
So, nothing else in our life
gets to have second place
with Jesus.
Especially, it doesn't get
to have first place
but it doesn't even get
to have second place.
It's destroyed.
It's last place.
It's hatred.
Okay?
It's hatred.
It's anything.
It's in the context
of anything that competes
with the Lord Jesus Christ
on the seat
of my affections.
I violently
put it to death
knowing
that Jesus
already did.
It took Jesus dying
to set me free
from that.
If I didn't do
anything else
in the world
and I just treasured
my family
above the Lord Jesus Christ,
Jesus Christ
would have had to suffer
in the agony of hell
on the cross
for my sin
because it's such
a wicked thing to do.
It's wicked.
It's so wicked.
And it doesn't seem
so bad, right?
Because family's good.
It's bad.
If we saw Jesus,
you know,
I'm confident
that so many things
that we just don't think
are that big a deal,
when we see Jesus,
we're going to immediately see
just our mouth
is going to be stopped.
We're going to be so thankful
that he paid for our sins.
But sins like these,
I think,
are going to magnify
and we're going to be able
to see and understand
how jacked up this was.
We'll look back
through time
and see Adam
choosing his wife
over God,
eating that fruit.
And we'll see,
oh no, Lord,
it's really wicked.
Nothing comes close
to Jesus.
It's not even a shadow.
Anything that even comes
close to Jesus
in my heart,
it's a wicked sin.
Lord, help me hate that,
run from that.
Give me grace
to escape this,
you know,
reset my values
in my heart
before you.
Okay, so basically,
that's it.
The solution is the gospel.
Okay?
When Jesus died,
he did everything.
There are so many aspects
of the Christian life
that tie directly back
to what Jesus did
on the cross.
He paid for our sins.
That's awesome.
The blood of Jesus
cleanses from all sin.
But he did a lot more
than that too.
He destroyed the power
of sin
to rule our life
on the cross.
He put the whole thing
to death.
That man of sin
was buried.
And when he rose
from the dead,
a new creation
rose from the dead.
We're seated
in the heavenly places
with Jesus.
And in the heavenly places
in Christ Jesus,
none of us has an idolatry
problem with family.
Okay?
And then the Holy Spirit
is ministering
that finished work
progressively in our life
as we follow Jesus.
May your kingdom come
and will be done
on earth
as it is in heaven.
And in this area,
the fruit of sanctification
looks like
Jesus increasingly
having preeminence.
And our natural way
of relating to family
getting renewed.
Okay?
So,
I want to talk through
a little bit
of the fruit of that.
Yeah.
Okay.
What results
can we expect
if we believe this truth?
If we apprehend this,
the Holy Spirit's
making this truth
a reality in our life,
what fruits,
what tangible evidence
should we expect
to see in our life?
I'm just going to walk
through some examples.
I didn't make any of these up.
These are just examples
pulled from the Bible.
Number one,
what we've been talking about,
Jesus has first place
in our affections.
Okay?
2 Corinthians 11,
verse 2 through 3,
Paul said,
I feel a divine jealousy
for you
since I betrothed you
to one husband
to present you
as a pure virgin to Christ.
But I'm afraid
as the serpent deceived Eve
by his cunning,
your thoughts
would be led astray
from the sincere
and pure devotion
to Christ.
A sincere
and pure devotion
to Christ
just springs up.
Okay?
Disorder in this area
dials down
our sense
of affection
for Jesus.
It clouds it.
We're like Martha
just worried
about so many things.
It's good to pray
for your family.
It's good to be concerned
with your family.
There's a right way
of doing it,
but not in such a way
where Jesus loses
first place in our heart.
You know?
If we've lost that,
Jesus says
the one thing is equal.
Okay?
That's what Paul's concerned
about for this group.
So,
what's a fruit
when we believe this truth?
Jesus has first place
in our heart.
Second,
you will experience
division and conflict
in your natural
family relationships.
There's no getting around it.
Okay?
Jesus says in Matthew 10
verse 34 through 42,
Do not think
that I came
to bring peace
on the earth.
I did not come
to bring peace,
but a sword.
Where specifically?
For I came
to set a man
against his father
and a daughter
against her mother
and a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law
and a man's enemies
will be the members
of his household.
All right.
So,
not only is he
not going to bring peace,
he's not going to bring peace
specifically within families.
Okay?
He who loves
father or mother
more than me
is not worthy of me.
He who loves
son or daughter
more than me
is not worthy of me.
Yeah,
it sounds familiar.
It's like a parallel passage.
And he who does not
take his cross
and follow after me
is not worthy of me.
He who has found
his life will lose it.
He who has lost
his life for my sake
will find it.
He who receives you
receives me,
and he who receives me
receives him who sent me.
He who receives a prophet
in the name of a prophet
shall receive a prophet's reward.
And he who receives
a righteous man
in the name of a righteous man
shall receive
a righteous man's reward.
You see the flip
that he does
with priorities?
Those of you
in your family
who receive
what you have to say
because it's
because of me,
because of Jesus,
not because you're
their family member,
because they're
your best friend,
but because
you're a disciple
of Jesus,
they're receiving me.
If they don't,
though,
hey,
that's part of the game.
That's part of the deal.
Don't be surprised.
I didn't come
to come make
your earthly family
a hoorah,
we're all getting along
sort of deal.
Actually,
I came to bring division
because I love those people
and their sin
was sending them to hell.
And if you love
their good opinion of you
more than you love
their eternal soul,
you're not willing to be.
So,
Jesus loves people
and he saves them
by convincing them
of sin
and the wrath to come
so that they escape
through the only escape
that's possible,
which is
his atonement
on the cross.
And if we love
our family members,
we're going to share
that with them too.
That brings division.
There's no way around it.
But that's how people
get saved.
You know,
so my dad got saved.
His sister
shared the gospel
with them.
Not everyone else
in their family
received it,
but he did.
Okay,
next.
Also related to family,
number three.
Limited ministry
effectiveness
in our extended family
at least
over the short term.
All right,
where am I getting this from?
I'm getting it from Jesus.
Matthew chapter 13
verse 57 through 58.
Speaking of Jesus,
it says,
and they took offense
at him.
But Jesus said to them,
a prophet is not
without honor
except in his hometown
and his own household.
And he did not do
many miracles there
because of their unbelief.
There's a bunch
of other examples of this.
They're in all the gospels,
basically,
except for John.
There's some different examples.
But basically,
Jesus started with his family
as a priority,
was not effective
in the short term,
though.
He didn't get to see fruit
from his short term ministry
to his extended family.
In fact,
the opposite.
They didn't believe in him.
They mocked him.
And in his hometown,
they tried to throw him
off a cliff.
So,
did he prioritize them
according to God's word?
Yes,
he did.
He shared the truth
with them first.
That's our example.
We share the truth
with those who are closest
to us first.
Did they receive him?
No.
In fact,
the opposite.
You know,
that phrase,
familiarity breeds contempt.
It comes from this.
It says,
no prophet is without honor
except in his own family
and his hometown
among his relatives,
the people who know you the most.
So,
my question for you is,
are you expecting
something different
than Jesus?
Do you have a more
inflated view
of your winsomeness
than you ought to have?
I mean,
I know I do.
I've been totally
just like
deluded into thinking
that I'm somehow
more winsome
than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Okay?
You're not.
We're not.
If,
Jesus says,
a disciple,
when he's perfect,
will be like his master.
So,
when we're perfect,
meaning when we're mature,
the best we can get
is like Jesus.
So,
we need to recalibrate
our expectations
based on what
the Bible says.
Later on,
a lot of them did believe.
Two of them wrote
books in the New Testament.
James was one
of his brothers.
Jude was one
of his brothers.
But it might not
have even been
until after he rose
from the dead.
Okay?
So,
the Lord
saves people.
We don't save people.
Our job is to testify
to the truth
and do it faithfully,
even if it causes
division
and shaking
our precious family peace.
If we love Jesus
more than we love
our precious family peace,
we'll be okay doing it.
Because you know
he's trying to do it.
If he loves them,
which we trust
he does,
that's what
he's trying to do.
And if we're
going to be faithful
to Jesus,
we participate
in this work of
this is what
the Bible says.
Okay?
Sinners hate it.
Just remember
how you
have behaved
when people
have called you
out about your sin.
Okay?
There's been a lot
of people
who've suffered
a lot of my backlash
and my tood
and my foul speaking
because they love me
and they confronted me
in my sin.
There's people
in this room
who've done it.
Okay?
God uses it.
Okay?
Okay.
Number four,
our family might get mad at us
and that's okay.
That's really kind of
just a repeat.
Five,
there's freedom.
If we obey this
reordering of priorities,
Jesus number one,
there's freedom
to follow Jesus
unhindered
wherever he wants us to go.
So I'm going to read
an example of this.
Jesus calling the apostles.
Matthew 4,
verse 18 through 22.
And Jesus,
walking by the Sea of Galilee,
saw two brothers,
Simon called Peter,
Andrew his brother,
casting a net into the sea
for they were fishers.
And he saith unto them,
follow me
and I will make you
fishers of men.
And straight away
they left their nets
and followed them.
And going on from there,
he saw two other brothers,
James the son of Zebedee
and John his brother,
in a ship with Zebedee,
their father.
See the familial connection here?
They're working
and they're doing it
with their dad.
Mending their nets
and he called them.
And they immediately
left the ship
and their father
and followed him.
Okay?
So,
this is a type
in the shadow.
You see other people
in the other example
we read in Luke 14
getting called
but refusing the call
because of family.
Here you see
the disciples
doing completely the opposite.
Okay?
He says,
hey,
come follow me.
They don't say,
oh,
but I got to honor my dad.
Oh,
I got this job
I'm doing with my dad.
You know,
my dad's,
you know,
he's going to be out of luck.
He's not going to be
able to do his job.
Right?
I don't want to dishonor my dad.
No,
no,
no.
Jesus has preeminence.
He says,
follow me.
They left it
and they followed him.
So,
Jesus gets to call the shots.
He's just the boss.
He's the boss of everything.
So,
he
has preeminence
over our
callers.
Okay?
So,
a natural byproduct is
we're just free.
Okay?
We're free
to go obey Jesus
in whatever he's called us to do.
And,
if what he calls us to do
conflicts
with some of our family priorities,
we need to get a renewed mind
because he's never going to call us
to do something
that disobeys him
with respect to
our family obligations.
Um,
number six.
What else do we get?
What are the evidences?
Uh,
we get new family relationships
in the church.
Mark 10,
verse 29 through 31,
Jesus says,
truly I say to you,
there's no man
that has left house
or brethren
or sisters
or father
or mother
or wife
or children
or lands
for my sake
and the gospels
that shall not receive
a hundredfold
now in this time
houses
and brethren
and sisters
and mothers
and children
and lands
with persecutions.
And the world
to come
eternal life.
And in Mark 3,
uh,
33 through 35,
he said,
uh,
who are my mother
and brothers?
And looking at those
who sat around him,
he said,
here are my mother
and brothers.
Forever does the will
of God.
He is my brother
and sister
and mother.
All right.
So,
uh,
we leave our natural
family
and we get a spiritual
family.
We're not going to have
our natural family
in heaven.
You know what we're
going to have?
We're going to have
our spiritual family.
Okay.
So it starts on earth.
We get converted.
Our tie,
our primary familial tie
to Adam
gets crucified
in Christ
in the cross.
And he raises us
to new life.
Who's our new family?
What's our primary
familial tie?
Sons of God
through Christ.
Our brothers and sisters
in the Lord.
That's the one
that's going to last forever.
Okay.
That's the most
prominent identity
we have.
Does this nullify
the family?
No.
But it's the one
that's going to last forever.
You know,
Julie and I
aren't going to be married
now.
The Bible's very clear
about that.
Jesus says they need
to marry
nor give them
marriage
in the resurrection.
So this is the family
that's going to last.
And guess what?
When we cut ties
with the old one,
we get the new one
and it's glorious.
It's a really precious thing.
Now there's extremes
with all this stuff
as there is with
everything in the Bible.
There's weird ways
that going with this,
but it's a glorious truth.
It's a wonderful truth.
One of the words
this year is family,
like specifically
church family,
not talking about
like family,
natural family.
It's church family.
I think this is
one of the truths
that we need to
internalize a little bit more.
I know I do.
This is something
I'm chief of offenders
in this,
prioritizing my family
over spiritual family,
but it ought not be so.
Okay.
So related to that,
number seven,
an ability to relate
according to the spirit,
not to the flesh.
We already read that verse
from 2 Corinthians 5
about in light of this
exchange that happened
on the cross,
this crucifixion
of the old man
and this resurrection
of the new man.
We don't regard people
according to the flesh anymore.
We look at it
with spiritual eyes.
Okay.
When we look at believers,
we're saying,
they're a new creation
in Christ.
In spite of all their
besetting sin
and things God's
sanctifying them in,
the primary way
I'm going to relate to them
is they're my brother
and sister in Jesus
and in Christ,
they're perfect.
And they're going
to last forever
and I'm going to last forever
and our fellowship
is forever.
And it's just
this glorious thing.
And if we relate
to each other
from that vantage point,
we got way more
margin for each other.
Love covers
a multitude of sins.
I'm not just like,
but this sin is so bad,
I can't handle it
until it's fixed.
You know,
like that's
viewing each other
according to the flesh.
Amen's in Christ.
He's a new creation.
Behold,
old things have passed away.
All things have become new.
So I'm going to just
believe that.
I'm going to set my,
I'm going to put a stake,
you know,
on that.
I'm going to say,
that's how I'm going to
view people.
By God's grace,
please renew my mind.
Help me to relate
to each other like this.
For people who are unbelievers,
since Christ died for all,
so all who live
would no longer
live for themselves.
They don't have any right
to their life.
Okay?
I don't need to apologize
to them for the gospel
and what Jesus has to say.
They lost their rights.
Okay?
They owe Jesus
their life.
And I'm here to command
them to repent.
And I know that
they're going to be
my brother and sister
in this living way
if they do so.
That's what I want to,
I want to have that
relationship with them.
I don't want to have
relationships with my
brothers and sisters
where we just
sit around avoiding
all the controversial
things that Jesus says
in order to keep
peace with them.
Okay?
Like,
if they don't repent
and believe in Jesus,
they're going to hell.
And I'll never have
a relationship with them
for eternity.
I want to have
a new relationship
with them.
I want to regard them
according to the spirit,
not according to the flesh.
And so there's an aspect
in which we can under,
we can look at
unbelievers like this
and be like,
wait a minute,
no.
They need to be
transformed,
you know.
I don't want to
commiserate with
their sin anymore.
So,
okay,
well,
I can't get to
everything here.
There are a few
objections to these
things.
I'm sure there's
a lot more
evidences.
Those should just
be one of them
that stood out to me.
A few objections
I want to speak to.
This is one of
the hard sayings.
I think R.C.
Sproul has a book
called Hard Sayings.
I can't remember
if this is in there
or not.
I think it is.
But anyway,
this is a hard say.
Luke 14, 26.
You got to hate
your family.
And if you don't,
you're not worthy
of being Jesus'
disciple.
Unqualified.
Hard.
It's difficult.
So,
I want to think
through a couple
objections to speak
to them real quick.
One is,
objection number one,
Jesus can't really
mean hate,
right?
That would
contradict all
the other commands
in the New Testament
about love.
You know,
love,
love, love, love.
There's love everywhere.
How could he
possibly mean we're
supposed to hate people
when we're supposed
to love them?
Especially our family
when we're commanded
to give priority
to our family
in love and affection
and service,
you know,
and all that.
How do these
mesh?
Okay.
I think there's two senses.
We can think of hate
in two ways.
These are these two
that occur to me.
Okay.
Number one is,
consider that also
in that passage
he said,
you.
He said,
you have to hate
your own life,
too.
Okay.
So,
how do we hate
our own life?
Well,
I can think of two ways
that I hate my own life.
One is,
that I know,
like Romans 7,
18 says,
that in my flesh
doles no good thing.
Okay.
I love Jesus.
He saved me.
He gave me a new heart.
I rejoice after God
in the innermost beauty.
But I see another principle
in me,
that when I want to do
what's right,
there's another force
inside of me
that sin.
It's important.
And I hate that guy.
I hate how selfish I am.
And I want to be free from it.
And I'm confident
that the Lord is
progressively sanctifying me
and giving me
increasing victory
over that indwelling sin.
I don't,
I hate that guy, though.
I hate him.
Any Christian,
if you're a Christian,
you know exactly
what I'm talking about.
If you don't,
you might need
to become a Christian.
Because this is evidence
of the Holy Spirit
as he teaches you
to recognize
your depravity
and hate it.
And,
in that sense,
we hate ourselves.
We say,
no,
I hate that guy.
I don't want to have
anything to do
with that guy.
I,
I want to live
for Jesus now.
He's my life.
Okay?
So,
how does this apply
to other people?
Well,
they are
just as much
a sinner as you are.
Okay?
So,
in the same sense
in which I hate
my own sin,
I can also recognize
it in my family.
And so,
you know what?
My self-centered,
self-preoccupied
infatuation
with my own
desires,
that sin,
was sending me
to hell.
And,
they got the same thing
and it's sending them
to hell.
And,
I'm not going to have
anything to do with it.
I'm not going to
commiserate with it.
I'm not going to
sympathize with it.
Because,
if I sympathize
with my own,
I'm screwed.
You know?
I can't sympathize
with it anymore.
I have to crucify it.
And,
they need to crucify it too.
And so,
I'm going to start
having more wisdom
with how I relate.
to their
sinful,
depraved nature
that's pulling them
headlong into the pit of hell.
And,
if they're Christians,
they're commanded
to be conformed
to the image of Jesus.
So,
I'm not going to
commiserate
with their sin
because it's preventing
them from being
conformed to the image
of Jesus.
So,
in neither of those
two areas am I going
to commiserate
with their sin anymore
because I don't
commiserate with my own.
Okay?
That was,
I died to him
on the cross.
So,
I'm therefore
commanded to mortify
therefore your members
which are upon the earth
in light of the fact
that I,
it was mortified
on the cross
by Jesus.
So,
that's one sense.
Okay?
Hating
our sinful nature
in ourselves
and in others
and stopping
commiserating with them.
You know?
And,
the second is
order of morals.
Order of loves.
I naturally
love myself
above everything.
That's the basic
default
human setting.
Me first.
Everyone else
can take a hike.
That's the default.
Clean God.
Okay?
Well,
that's wicked.
When God comes
into our life,
he completely flips it
around and it's
me first,
son.
I'm number one
and everything else
finds its right place
when I'm number one.
Okay?
So,
it's order of affection.
So,
in that sense,
I hate myself.
I say,
no,
I don't want anything
to do with that
selfish,
self-centered,
wicked guy
who makes him
the God of himself
and the God
of his whole life.
No.
Self
off the throne.
Jesus on the throne.
Well,
in the same way,
everyone else
is the same.
Like,
they're just,
they're preoccupied
with themselves,
you know?
And so,
no,
I'm not going to make them,
I'm not going to
let them be God.
And there's a tendency,
you know,
just,
we're not selfless
in our affection
with our family.
I guess that's part
of the point.
This natural affection
and connection
we have with family,
it has to do with self.
It's what I get
out of my family.
It doesn't have anything
to do with God
and what he gets out of them.
It's all about me.
And so,
in that sense,
I don't know if I'm making
that clear,
I think I'm bouncing
around a little bit.
It's,
I hate them
in the sense
that I'm
not letting them
be chief of my
affections anymore.
Just like I don't let
myself be the chief
of my affection anymore.
I don't let my family
be the chief of my
affection anymore.
They both get taken
off the throne.
Jesus is on the throne.
So,
anyway,
I think that there's
two senses in which
I think we can say,
hey,
and I think it
maintains the
strongness of the
language that he uses.
It's actually hate.
Okay?
It's not,
you know,
really disparate
affections.
It's actually hate.
Because the two things
he's pointing out
have to do with
idolatry
and our depravity.
And we are supposed
to hate those
and get those
completely out of
the ruling
seat on our hearts.
Okay.
I'm going to burn
through these
a little bit faster.
Okay.
Next objection.
My first ministry,
my primary responsibility
is to love and care
for my family.
How can I obey
this command
about hitting my family
and following Jesus?
It seems like a contradiction.
It's not a contradiction
because what they
actually need
is Christ's love.
What they need
is the Lord Jesus
to love them
through you.
All the commands
of the New Testament
about loving our family,
caring for our family,
Ephesians 5,
husbands loving your wives,
laying down your lives for,
wives submitting
to your husbands,
you know,
parents raising
your children,
children obeying
your parents,
all this stuff.
It's only,
you're only able
to obey it
through Jesus.
Okay.
He's the provision
for that love
and the accomplishing
of that commandment.
So how it works is
we give Jesus
first place
and he leads us
into obedience
to all those commandments.
He cares about them
way more than we do.
So we ought not think
that we need to contradict,
you know,
or set these two commandments
against each other.
This is actually
the fulfillment of it.
This is how Jesus
fulfills his command
to love people
by coming inside
our selfish heart
and loving people.
The delusion is
that we think
that we can actually
love people without God.
We don't.
Okay.
We're selfish.
We're super self-centered.
We're in it
for ourselves.
Okay.
I will love you
and do you good
as long as you do me good.
Okay.
That's the extent
of self-centered love.
As soon as you
stop doing me good,
you're done.
Jesus is not like that.
Those whom he loved,
he loved to end.
And that's what
our family needs.
Okay.
They don't need our love.
The other objection,
I've heard this a lot actually,
is this only applies
to unbelieving families,
not believers.
All right.
Why would you ever need
to hate or forsake
your believing family?
That has to be in reference
to pagans
who don't believe in God
and because you decide
to follow Jesus,
you have to,
you know,
separate.
Well,
that's obviously true too,
but he doesn't say anything
about the quality
of these people.
He just says,
they're family.
It has to do with
the place they hold
in our affections.
So,
anyway,
the last is,
I really want my family,
you know,
unbelieving or unchurched Christians,
I want them to follow Jesus
and this just doesn't seem
like a winsome approach.
Okay.
I would encourage us all
to consider the example
of Jesus.
Following Jesus
is not just
an abstract thing
that we just sort of imagine
and come up with our own idea
of what that looks like.
We have real examples
of what Jesus did.
We're commanded
to follow
his example
of what he did.
So,
my question is,
are you trying
to be more winsome
than the Lord Jesus Christ
with how you approach
missions in your family?
And if the answer is yes,
then you need to repent.
Okay.
God's in the business
of saving people.
We're in the business
of obeying Jesus
and being faithful.
Okay.
Sometimes we're trying
to do both
and then we're forced
into compromising
for long seasons of time.
I know this
from personal experience.
Okay.
So,
that's about it.
I'm going to run
through a few exhortations.
Exhortation number one
is specifically
for our church,
just praying
through our church.
I think these are meaningful
and they have bearing
on us.
Number one is
we just have to pick
family first
or Jesus first.
Okay.
You can't solve
doing both.
You cannot solve
that equation.
It's an unsolvable equation.
you have to pick
one or the other.
Okay.
That's how he calls it out.
That's what our response
has to be.
Second,
believers' families
are not exempt.
This does not just apply
to unbelieving families.
This just applies
to all Christians
and all families.
You can have
the most God-honoring,
gospel-glorifying family
on the face
of the planet
and you still
have to do this.
It doesn't matter
how good the person is,
they're not God.
Okay.
Jesus,
there's only one Jesus.
He's Lord of our heart.
Okay.
So he brings division
and he brings it
in the best of families.
So let him do it.
Second,
don't be ashamed
of Christ's words
and the division they cause.
We've already talked
about that a lot,
but just I want to
admonish us
not to do that.
This is how we,
this is how we
quench the spirit
is by
making the primary value
for our familial relationships
being having a happy,
good time
without any conflict.
That's not good.
Jesus is here
to bring conflict
for the salvation
of all of our souls.
Remember all the conflict
we had when we got saved.
Okay.
Like,
do we think that
that's just magically
not going to happen with him?
Especially when Jesus promises
and says,
hey,
this is how it's going to go.
There's going to be conflict.
Okay.
So we should just be okay
with that.
I think I'm going to stop.
Those are all the
expectations I have.
I just won't frame.
Okay.
Let's go.
Thank you.