“All in for Jesus!”

Scripture: Luke 14:25-33

After 4 weeks of talking about faith – what it is, where it comes from, what it brings to our lives, and what our obligation is in faith, here is the test – “What does Christian faith mean to you?”

Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Faith is a gift from God; faith is beyond our reasoning and understanding; faith is knowing, without question, that the unknown and the unseen is absolutely true; faith is trusting that the Giver of faith is also the one who we have faith in; faith is giving the Lord 100% of our life, and nothing less can ever be sufficient.

Faith is a blessing, a joy, a sense of worthiness, a commitment, and it leads to action that occurs without a plan in our mind and without an outcome in our heart. Faith is the center piece of our Christian walk, and without faith for guidance, our walk can never bring glory to Christ.

But the one thing that faith can never be is half-hearted. The Lord tells us in Revelation 3:16 “Because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” This should not be a pleasant thought for any of us! There can never be a fence sitter in Christian faith!

Read Luke 14:25-27

The crowds were always looking for something from Jesus. Teaching, healing, forgiveness, new life, relief from an oppressive life – the list could go on and on! But for the vast majority of people, their expression of faith was always one sided. They wanted Jesus to do many things for them - and truly believed that he could - but that was as far as they could take it – they weren’t prepared to give him anything in return.
And so, he begin to teach them the reality of faith – that if they had any expectation of receiving from him, they needed to be prepared to surrender their all to him. If he received only a little bit of their lives, then he would only be able to do a little bit for their lives. We can’t hold back on most of our life and still expect Jesus to give his all for us. Hence the theme of this passage – “If you don’t -- , then you can’t be my disciple!”

But the lesson is a hard one to learn, if we take it literally. Do we really have to hate our family if we are to truly love the Lord? Must we plan to die at the hands of those who oppose Christians when we follow Jesus’ teaching and the Spirit’s leading? A lot of folks stumble over this, and they shouldn’t.
Jesus is a loving Lord, and he would never expect us to hate those who are closest to us, or anyone else for that matter. He even tells us that we are to love our enemies! (Matthew 5:44) So what is this all about? It is about an extreme in comparison between the things and the people we love on earth, and the One we choose to love in heaven. When push comes to shove, and it most assuredly will, who will we choose? Will we let our love for the things of this realm take precedence over the call of Christ? Who is going to get first billing?
Jesus wants us to understand that if we don’t put him first all the time, then we haven’t given him our all. Faith must be that absolute!

His words were never intended to mean that we must literally hate, despise, reject, disown, our family, our life, and everything that is of earth! His words were never intended to mean that we will die a horrible death when we follow him! He wants us to be so committed to him that we put our earthly loves, and fears, behind our dedication to him.

Read Luke 14:28-33

He offers this teaching so that the people - and in this instance it was a very large crowd – would understand just what it was that they were asking for. Did they realize that there was a part that they must play as well?

On the eve of the invasion of Europe in World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower prepared two press releases to be given out at the conclusion of the D-Day operation. The first was an announcement that the effort had succeeded and it praised the troops for a victorious effort. The second was notice of defeat, in which he would take complete and personal responsibility for the failure in battle and the excessive loss of life. He knew the cost, he accepted the cost, and he put his all into the decision to proceed. There was no question in his mind that the invasion had to be tried, but the outcome was very much in question! And the Supreme Commander was prepared for either outcome.

Jesus offers two analogies to demonstrate the extent of the issue to the people – the first relates to a construction project, and the second to the preparations for battle.

Construction projects fail all the time and for many different reasons, the least of which is poor financing. Design failures occur because of inexperienced engineers, site selection is inadequate because the soil conditions weren’t evaluated properly, the building itself fails because someone tried to cut corners to save money, and of course – the point that Jesus is making - the actual cost of the construction exceeds the resources available to finance the project. Construction of a building can be a monumental task, and if every detail isn’t carefully worked out, catastrophe will almost always be the result. Shame and ridicule will be the least of the owners concerns – human misery, loss of employment, injury and even loss of life must also be understood to be a possibility. There’s a lot to take into account.

But as critical as details are in a building project, they are even more important when planning for military action. Every detail, every possibility, every move by the opposing force must be planned for and nothing can be left to chance. The most successful battles, those such as D-Day and Operation Desert Storm, were thoroughly planned out and prepared for, and in the long run, both were victorious. But when battle plans are rushed, or the details overlooked, or the possibilities are ignored, the result will be disastrous. And far more than ridicule or humiliation will come to the army involved!

Jesus wanted the people to know that knowledge of what they were committing to was just as important in faith as it is in building a house or planning a battle. You can never begin expecting great victories without understanding the cost of that victory. We usually see salvation as free, and rightly so. It has been bought and paid for by God Himself, but it requires a complete and total dedication on our part, and in that, it isn’t free.
It requires that we give our all to the Lord, and not just a token effort. It means that we can’t be satisfied with an hour, give or take, on Sunday, and an hour or two during the week for a meeting or bible study. It means that we live our entire life, every minute of every hour of every day, for Christ and his glory!

When Jesus came to earth, he didn’t come with some pie-in-the-sky attitude of great success, or some Pollyanna-ish mindset that it would be a lot of fun, and that people would hang on his every word, and would flock to his side at every turn. God knew how humanity was going to react to his presence among them – he knew that they / WE would be skeptical, that we would hesitate, that we would be hard to convince - but he was prepared to live it out just the same, and he was prepared to give us his all just the same - all so that we might, one day, share in his victory of life over death.

Read Luke 14:34-35

Can you imagine “unsalty” salt? Tasteless, ineffective, and useless. Good for nothing. Fit only for the trash heap! Jesus says that a weak, halfhearted, compromised faith is no better than that. Now, one more time, “What does Christian faith mean to you?”
Are you in 100%, or are you still hedging your bet? Do you think, as so many others do, that because Jesus is so loving and passionate for humanity that he would never actually let us fall away to the pit? Do you think, as many others do, that there is still time to enjoy the ways of earth while you put off that decision for Christ to a later day? Do you think, as many others do, that any expression of faith is just as good as faith in Christ? Jesus tells us that we don’t get to define faith – only God does. We only get to choose it or reject it.
Remember the “unsalty” salt? “Unfaithful” faith is no different. Make your decision for Christ – and make it complete!

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”