Last Week's Sermon

Pentecost 15, 2010, (9/5/2010)

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Philemon 1-21

Luke 14:25-35

Give your all!

In 1948 President Harry Truman had spent the summer touring the great southwest. Back in Washington He was asked about the sights and sounds of his vacation. Truman told the press that one of the highlights was a day trip to the old west town of Tombstone Arizona and its infamous cemetery boot hill. I will always remember the epitaph carved on the humble grave marker of a man named Jack Williams. It reads “Here lies Jack Williams He did His Darndest”. President Truman said that is the best thing a man can be remembered for, giving everything he has too complete the job placed in-front of him and as your President that is what I have always tried to do.

The central message in the Gospel lesson for today is just that, we are called to give our all. As our Lord continues His trek to Jerusalem where He indeed will give His all, Jesus is laying the groundwork for the apostolic age and the foundation of the Christian Church. Again we find Him addressing a large crowd, some of which have been traveling with Him for several months. Today our Lord zero’s in on the challenges one will face as we too follow Him to Jerusalem.

1. You must Love the Lord even more that your nuclear family, even more than you love yourself.

2. As you travel along the road to eternity with Him it will not be easy, you must be prepared to carry your own crosses you must be prepared to give your all.

3. Nothing you possess in this life shall matter when you approach the glory of your salvation.

To make this point Jesus uses some pretty pointed words. 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, whoever does not bear his own cross and renounce all that he has, cannot be My disciple. Wow, what ever happened to love thy neighbor as thy self, or the 4^th commandment, Honor thy father and thy mother? If we take the message out of context, many of us will walk away confused and discouraged. Yet you need not. When St. Matthew recorded this very event he wrote, Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Jesus is not worthy of being a disciple and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow our Lord is not worthy of discipleship either.

From the apostolic age forward, this message has caused much trouble and division. So many Churches have twisted and manipulated this passage in an attempt to control their flocks.

Let me try and frame the message as clearly as I can.

To be a disciple of Jesus you must hate you family and yourself. Not true, many in the crowd felt that their heritage was their ticket to heaven, to the first century Jew, being a descendent of Abraham meant your salvation was certain and secure.

You must be prepared to carry your own cross, this is true. Life is and continues to be a challenge even for the Christian, unfortunately being a disciple of Christ does not ensure you will live free from conflict and pain. When Jesus preached this sermon He knew with all certainty what the future held for His chosen 12.

Andrew died on a cross.
Simon was crucified.
Bartholomew was flayed alive.
James (son of Zebedee) was beheaded.
The other James (son of Alphaeus) was beaten to death.
Thomas was run through with a lance.
Matthias was stoned and then beheaded.
Matthew was slain by the sword.
According to tradition, Peter was crucified upside down on a Roman cross.
Thaddeus was shot to death with arrows.
Philip was hanged by the neck.

Only John made it through alive but he was exiled to the tiny island of Patmos in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

As we follow Jesus to our own heavenly Jerusalem we will face many challenges. Every week we pray for those among us who are struggling, however short of another terrorist attack on this great nation, none of us will be murdered because we are disciples of Jesus Christ. Yet like Jack Williams we stand ready to give our all.

Anyone who does not renounce all that he has can not be My disciple. Or as Jesus said later in Luke’s writing, you must sell all that you have and give it to the poor. The point here is also clear, I will not call upon you this morning to sell your house or your home, your car or your carriage and give it to the poor, although it is clear God will bless you if you do. The message is this, on that day when our Lord dispatches His holy angels to retrieve you soul to heaven, you shall approach the throne of grace empty handed, at that moment in time your net worth shall be determined by the righteousness of Jesus Christ and not by the value of your portfolio. So let nothing you own ever stand between you and His love.

God told Moses that this world is filled with good and evil, and that if His people obey the commandments of the Lord and walk in His ways that they would have life and they would be blessed. That is really all God wants from you, He want you to place Him and His will before the will of our sinful flesh, when you trust in Him and Him alone you shall be blessed and have life, you will have life everlasting.

Those are some of the lessons from the Holy Scriptures today, but might I suggest there is more. I think if we look deeper into the text we might see that the message is really about Jesus and all that He has done for you and me.

To put a capstone on His teaching Jesus told the crowd this following parable. Who among you wanting to build a something does not first consider the cost of construction, lest you are unable to finish it and you are laughed at by you peers. And what king or colonel would lead his armies into war without first estimating the strength of his enemy and marshaling sufficient troops for victory.

Yes I think these parables point us to the love of God shone in the sending of His own dear Son Jesus Christ. The mission of our Lord Jesus Christ was to build a secure future for all who believe in Him, and He knew the exact cost. He knew that the cost for your sins and mine would be paid by the shedding of His own sacred blood. When God saw the battle of good verses evil which has plagued His creation since the fall of man, He knew exactly how many troops He would need to marshal to secure victory on the battlefield of human mortality. The Father knew that it would take but “An army of One”. He knew that to secure eternity for all who believe in Him, Jesus would have to leave His heavenly Father and the communion of saints and be born of the Virgin Mary. God knew that His only Son would have to enter the corruption of His creation and give His all. God knew that only by carrying His own cross to victory could Jesus bring freedom, forgiveness and reconciliation to you and to me, sinners both. Jesus told the crowd that they were to renounce all their earthly possessions, and when the Centurions had completed the process of crucifying our Lord, the bible says they divided His last earthly possessions by casting lots for the garments. God knew that by His glorious resurrection and ascension the war would be won, victory secured by this single soldier.

Let there be no question as to the price that was paid for the victory you and I now share, the price was the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me close with this thought.

When God the Father looked down from heaven and saw His only Son Jesus hanging lifeless on Calvary’s bloody cross, He may not have seen any cute words carved into a tombstone beneath that cross, but I am certain, when He heard His Son speak His last words, “It is finished”, He knew, just as you and I know today, He had given His all.

Lord; How Great Thou Art!

How Great Thou Art!

In Jesus Name! Amen!