What Does it Mean to Carry Your Cross? (Luke 14:25-35)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for the Wednesday in the Word Podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is the podcast where we explain not only what scripture means but how we figure it out. Today we're going to be discussing the question of what does it mean to carry your cross? If you're driving, exercising, or getting ready for work, you don't need to take notes or try to remember all the details. I have lecture notes on my website, which you can find at the link below this podcast, or you can go to wednesdayintheword.com slash carry cross. Thanks for listening. We're going to be looking at Luke chapter 14 verses 25 through 35 today. I have been wanting to teach this passage for a long time. I think this is one of those passages we all need to understand. Jesus makes some pretty explicit statements in this passage about what it means to be his disciple, and it seems to me that's important for us to know. So let me read it and then we'll dive in. This is Luke chapter fourteen starting in verse twenty five. Now great crowds accompanied him, that's Jesus, 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, 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 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 with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 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. At first reading, it's obvious that something important is at stake in this passage. Jesus is giving conditions for being his disciple. He's saying if you don't do these things, you cannot be my disciple. And this passage can be pretty terrifying because Jesus makes some pretty hard claims. He talks about hating your parents and even your own life and giving up all your possessions. Well what is that all about? This passage is so demanding that it has essentially created a rift in Christian theology. Most people take one of two general positions. One side says this passage means pretty much what it says on face value. We can't come to Jesus, we can't follow him and find salvation unless we hate our parents, take up our crosses, and give all our possessions to the poor. Well that sounds so demanding and difficult to understand that there's another side that says no, that position can't be right. We know we're justified by faith alone, not by acts of obedience. When Jesus says you can't be my disciple unless you do these things, what must be true is that being a disciple is not necessary for being saved. So Jesus is saying you can't be my disciple unless you carry your cross and hate your parents, but do I have to be his disciple? This side of the debate would say no, being a disciple is an extra added thing on top of being saved. Well, I hope you can see that understanding what Jesus says here is important because you and I have to do something with his words. We have to decide if being his disciple is the same thing as being a believer or not, and we have to decide if we're required to give up all our possessions or not. Jesus is making a very strong statement and we can't ignore it. One of these positions must be wrong. Both of them can't be true. Either Jesus meant for us to take him literally or he didn't. Either this is something a follower of Jesus must do or it isn't, and we have to take a stand on it. So are you going to say, okay, I'm happy to be a follower of Jesus and get saved and all, but discipleship, well that's just too much for me. I'm not strong enough to be a disciple. I'll leave that to the super Christians like the monks and the nuns and the saints, and I'll just have faith and get saved and leave that discipleship stuff to someone else. But what if Jesus didn't leave us that option? Maybe that's not even a position we can take. Is Jesus saying you can't come to him at all unless you come to him in this way? Is what he's saying non negotiable? And if it is non negotiable, then we have to come to terms with it. Well, I'll tell you right up front that I think what Jesus is saying is non negotiable. It is something each of us who claims to follow Jesus has to take seriously. I think to be saved is to be his disciple, and to truly be his disciple is to be saved. Having said that, though, I firmly believe in justification by faith and faith alone. And what we want to do today then is figure out what does it mean to carry your cross? What exactly is Jesus asking us to do in this passage? How should we who claim to follow him respond to these very strong statements? What is Jesus confronting us with? Well first let's tackle the question of whether or not being a disciple is the same thing as being saved. One of the ways people handle this passage is to say you don't have to be a disciple to be a believer. If we were to go through the New Testament and look at the way the New Testament uses this word disciple, I think we'd find there is no evidence for that position. The word disciple simply means a student or one who learns, but it's a particular kind of student in that culture. In Jesus' culture, teachers or rabbis gathered students about them, and the rabbis developed a certain understanding of the law, of God and of scripture, and then they taught their students from their theological perspective. So they gathered a group around them who wanted to learn what they thought, and those students sought to understand everything the rabbi was teaching, and they were his students or his disciples. Jesus was a rabbi in this sense. He had a group of students who lived with him, who followed him around and made it their mission to understand everything he taught. There was the immediate group of the twelve who had a unique and personal relationship with Jesus, but there were many others, both male and female, who followed him around and sought to learn what he was teaching, and these followers are called his disciples. After Jesus left the earth, his apostles were given the assignment to go out and make disciples. Now the striking thing about the apostles is they were supposed to make disciples of Jesus, not of themselves. They were not to go out and make disciples of Peter or Paul or James or John, as would be expected in their culture. They were to go out and make disciples of Jesus. Lots of rabbis had disciples, and they could reasonably have expected to go out and become the next rabbi and gather their own disciples. But Jesus made it clear that's not what's supposed to happen. They are to go out and make disciples of Jesus, and that's what they did. Throughout the book of Acts, believers are referred to as disciples. Perhaps the most obvious example is Acts 1126, which tells us, and in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. So Luke tells us in Acts 11, those who were listening to the apostles, who were learning what they taught and deciding to follow Jesus, became known as Christians because they follow the Christ. Anyone is a disciple who hears the message and understands and embraces it. If you hear the message that Jesus and His apostles teach and you embrace it, you're a disciple of Jesus. You're one of his students, you learn from him and seek to understand everything he teaches. I thought about spending a lot more time going through the New Testament and looking at the use of the word disciple, but I decided that was something you could do on your own. And if you do, I think you'll conclude that disciples are believers. Now I think the folks that say you can be a believer but not be a disciple, have it backwards. I think it would be more accurate to say you can be a disciple and not be a believer. That is, you can be seeking to learn what Jesus taught, but ultimately you might reject it and deny it. You might be a student of his for a while and then decide, wait a minute, no, this is not for me. If Jesus is gonna teach X, Y, Z, then I don't want any part of Him anymore. So I would say you can be a disciple and not be a believer, but if you are a believer, you are also a disciple. And we see this in the Gospels. Jesus will teach something, and then the text will tell us that some of his disciples abandoned him and stopped following him. For example, this comes from John six. In John six sixty it says, When many of his disciples heard it, they said, This is a hard saying, who can listen to it? And then skipping down to verse sixty six, after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. So John's giving us this picture that Jesus had a lot of disciples, but after hearing what he had to say, only some of them decided to stay and continue following him. Only some embraced his teaching as true. Let me give you another example. This is John 8, 31 and 32. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Jesus is saying, if you want to be my disciple, you have to abide or remain in my word. When I teach you and tell you the truth, you have to embrace it and continue to believe it. You can't abandon me like those other guys. You hear it, you believe it, and you remain, you continue to believe it. And if you do that, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. If you don't remain in my word, if you hear it and decide you're going to listen to some different teacher and reject the words of truth, then you're not my disciple, you're not going to know the truth, and the truth will not set you free. Now we can look at a lot more passages, but I think those make it pretty clear that to be a believer is to be a disciple. If you embrace and follow the teachings of Jesus, then you are a believer and you are also his disciple. So how are we going to solve this passage? Well, first, it's helpful to know that Jesus uses similar language in other contexts. And these other passages in their context can give us explanation and clues as to what Jesus has on his mind here. If you've taken a Bible study class, you've probably heard the phrase, let scripture interpret scripture. Well, studying this passage is going to give us an example of using that principle. Luke fourteen isn't the only place that Jesus used this language of carrying your cross. We find similar passages in Matthew and Mark, and we can look at those places and study those contexts to see if we can learn what Jesus might be thinking when he's speaking here. These passages give us a little more detail and a little more description, and we can bring that back to Luke 14. One of the places we find this language is after the famous scene where Jesus asks, Who do people say I am? And Peter says, You're the Christ. We find this in Mark eight, Luke 9, and Matthew 16. So in Mark 8 34, it says, And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. And then also in Matthew sixteen twenty four, then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So let me set the stage for these verses. These are the parallel accounts. Jesus asks his disciples who the crowds think he is, and they answer, Well, some people say you're John the Baptist, others say you're Elijah, and others say you're one of the prophets who is risen. And then Jesus asks, Who do you say I am? And Peter says you're the Christ. Then Jesus starts to teach them that he's going to be killed and raised again on the third day. And in Mark's and Matthew's account, Peter pulls Jesus aside, saying, No, no, that can't be right, you can't die, and Jesus rebukes Peter and then turns to his disciples in the crowd and gives this talk. And the talk that Jesus gives is about how the world hates him, and the world is going to hate you too if you follow him, and if you're going to follow him, you're going to have to reckon with the hatred of the world. So in each of the talks after Peter's confession, Jesus tells them three things in addition to this language about taking up your cross. First, he tells them whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will find it. Second, he tells them what will it profit them if they gain the whole world and lose their soul? And third, he tells them whoever is ashamed of him and his words, Jesus will be ashamed of him when he comes into his glory. And we're going to talk more about what those mean as we go through our passage. For now I want to give you the big picture because all these contexts contain the same themes. The other context where we find this language is in Matthew ten, and this is when Jesus is sending out the twelve. In Matthew ten thirty eight he says, And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. So let me set the context for this verse and you'll notice we have very similar themes to the talk after Peter's confession. Jesus is sending the twelve out on a missionary journey, and he tells them to go to the house of Israel and proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand. He gives them this talk then to prepare them for the journey. He tells them they're going to be arrested and flogged, that they'll be dragged before governors and kings, that their own families may betray them and that they will be hated because they are his followers. He tells them he didn't come to bring peace, but discord. His word is divisive. He came to set man against father and daughter against mother. He also tells them not to be anxious about what they will say before the courts and not to fear those who can only kill their body, rather they should fear the one who can destroy both body and soul. And Jesus says whoever acknowledges him he will acknowledge before God, and whoever denies him, he will deny, which is very similar to the language about being ashamed that we see in the talk after Peter's confession. He also says whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses it for his sake will find it. Again, very similar language to what we see in Luke and in these other passages. Essentially, Jesus tells them, People are going to hate you because you're my follower. You're going out there as my representatives, and you're gonna find a lot of people don't like me, and you're also gonna find they don't like you either. Now in both the talks after Peter's confession and the talk before sending out the twelve, Jesus is essentially saying, What are you going to do when the world responds to you the way the world responds to me? How are you, my disciples, going to respond when the world hates you because you follow me? What are you gonna do when they mock and scoff and call you a fool? What are you going to do when they hate you and persecute you and reject you and seek to kill you the way they do me? Because that's what's gonna happen. You may even be asked to lose your life because you follow me. If your father or mother rejects me and threatens to disown you for following me, you have to make a choice, and the wise choice is to follow me. You're going to be put in a spotlight, put on trial where the world demands to know whose side are you on, and at that spot when they're rejecting you and threatening your life and demanding to know if you follow me or not, at that spot what you need to say is I'm on Jesus' side. Don't let the fear of what they might do to you keep you from confessing me. Because if you deny me Jesus, later, when it's time for me, Jesus, to say whether or not I'm on your side, I may say sorry I don't know you. Essentially in these contexts, Jesus teaches them that they have to make a choice about what their life is all about and where life is to be found. And here's what I mean by that. By following Jesus, I gain the rejection of the world around me. And that means in this life I stand to lose in some significant ways. I stand to lose the approval and love and security of my family and friends. I stand to lose money and career and prestige. I stand to lose position in the community. I stand to lose the affection of my family, I might be arrested and lose my freedom, I might be beaten and lose my health or even my very life. There are all kinds of ways we might lose because we follow Jesus. And the question when we're facing that choice is what do I want in the end? What is most important to me? Where do I think I'm going to find life and find fulfillment? If I think that I will find life in all the good things of this world here and now, if that's my goal, then it's pretty stupid to follow Jesus because following Jesus is going to cost me. And I think Jesus is trying to get his disciples to see that they have to make this choice. He's saying if you're going to follow me, you may very well end up losing something in this world. And the question is, do you recognize that whatever it is you lose, even if it's your life, it's nothing in comparison to what you gain by the gospel. What you're gaining out of following Jesus is incomparably better than what you're losing even if you lose your life. So following Jesus is the wise choice, and you need to recognize that as you follow Jesus, you're going to be forced to make this choice about whose side you're on. That's what those passages are teaching, and I think understanding that helps us to understand Luke fourteen because essentially he's making the same point. Let's go back and look at Luke fourteen then. Let's start with twenty five and twenty six. 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, he cannot be my disciple. Jesus knows he's saying something provocative and shocking here. He's using very strong language to get their attention. The only immediate context Luke gives us is that large crowds are following him. Some of them probably genuinely believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, he is who he says he is, but some of them are probably there for the miracles, the free bread, and the show. So Jesus is confronting them with this choice. Why are you following me? Are you willing to follow me when it costs you? Are you just here for the fun, the show, the healing, and the miracles? Jesus says something similar when he sends out the twelve, but he gives a little more detail, so I want to look at that. This is Matthew ten. I'm going to read verses thirty four through thirty eight. Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword, for I have come 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 person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Jesus is picturing a scenario in which his gospel comes into the fabric of a family and divides it. Some of the members of the family accept his message and others reject it. And in this context, that's what he means by he didn't come to bring peace. Now there's another sense in which he ultimately did come to bring peace in the sense of solving the problem of sin in the world and reconciling us to God, but that's not our context here. Here he's talking about a family hearing the gospel and turning against each other because some embrace the message and some reject it. And those who reject Jesus are very likely to also reject their own family members who have accepted him. Those in the family who have accepted the gospel are then faced with a hard choice. Whose side are you on? Jesus or your family? If it comes down to that choice, you have to be prepared to choose Jesus. Ultimately, you have to decide where your loyalty lies, where you expect to find life, and what is most important to you. And Jesus is saying when you face that choice, you need to be prepared to follow me. Back in Luke fourteen he says, this is verse twenty six, 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. So we talked about the family divide. Now let's look at this phrase and even his own life. Again, we see this idea of losing your life in the other passages. This is Matthew sixteen, twenty four through twenty six. Then Jesus told his disciples, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? So what's he saying here? The one who says I'm going to find my fulfillment here and now in this world. I'm going to take care of me first, I'm going to build my own little worldly fiefdom, and that's where I'll find life right here and now in this world. That person will lose his life. If you're seeking to find life and fulfillment in the world, you will lose it all in the end, no matter how much you gain right now, because ultimately God will judge and destroy those who have chosen the world and rejected him. But the one who looks at what he has in this life and says, No, this isn't it. This is not what I'm going to take my stand on. I need a savior. I'm going to stand with Jesus even if they kill me. I'm going to stand with Jesus even if my family hates me. That person, even if he dies in this life, will find eternal life in the kingdom of God. So if you seek to find life in the kingdom of God, you will find eternal life even if you lose your life in this world. I think that helps us understand Jesus' statement in Luke 14, 26 about hating your family members and even hating your own life. When he says hating your family members and hating your own life, he's using this striking phrase to get our attention. He doesn't mean you have to be hostile and vicious toward your family members or you have to try to hurt yourself. By hate and love, he means the thing that you love is the thing that you're going to hold on to. And the thing that you hate is the thing that you're going to let go of. That's the imagery he's using. So what are you going to hang on to? Are you going to going to hang on to your family and your life in this world and let go of Jesus? Or are you going to let go of your life in this world and your family and hang on to Jesus? So he's talking about what you love and what you hate in the sense of what do you value? What do you worship? Where are you going to place your loyalties when you have to make a choice? If my sister won't follow me in this journey of faith and she threatens to disown me unless I deny Jesus, I need to be willing to follow Jesus and lose my sister. I need to be willing to say to my sister, I'm sorry, but the gospel is just too important. I'm staking my life on the gospel. Now to my sister, that may feel like I'm treating her hatefully, and she may call me foolish and complain about the way I'm treating her. I'm not acting hatefully, but it may feel that way to my family members. I'm not acting unlovingly or ungraciously or treating them without compassion. I am standing firm in the gospel and they are going to find that offensive. Now for most of us, family is a place of security. When a family works well, being within the acceptance of a family group is one of the most secure places we humans can find. And Jesus is saying, I'm asking you for a loyalty that goes beyond that family group. I'm offering you a security that is better than the security of a close family. Ultimately, the approval of Jesus has to mean more to me than the approval of my family. So Jesus is saying, You can't be my disciple and put your family over me. You can't be my disciple and love your family more than me. If you're going to keep following me, when your family rejects you, you need to be willing to take it. Now going on, this is Luke fourteen, twenty five through twenty seven. Again, 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, and yes, even his own life he cannot be my disciple, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So there's the context for this statement about bearing your cross. So let's think about this idea of bearing your cross or carrying your cross in this context. A cross is not something you use to commit suicide. A cross is something that somebody else nails you to. The cross was an instrument of execution. You can't commit suicide with a cross. Now Jesus had not yet faced the cross, but his disciples all knew what a cross was. If the Romans found you guilty of a crime that was worthy of capital punishment, they would nail you to a cross and leave you there until you died. And all the crowds following Jesus were familiar with the scene of a condemned criminal carrying his cross out to the place of his execution. Now remember, in all the contexts where we see this language about carrying your cross, the context is the world is gonna hate you for following me. They're gonna make you suffer for being my disciple. As my disciple, the world, including your own family members, is going to hate you just like they hated me and you're going to have to make a choice. So it seems to me that carrying your cross is having the willingness to accept the disapproval and rejection of the world. He's saying, Do you want to be my disciple? Well, as my disciple, you have to be willing to follow me no matter what, even if it means you die. But don't be afraid of that. Don't fear those who can kill the body. In comparison to God who can send you into hell, what's the big deal about dying? Whose disapproval matters more, God's disapproval or the world's? What can the world do to you in comparison to what God can do? They might be able to take your life, but God can destroy your soul. The choice to take up your cross is a metaphorical way of talking about this choice over where do we expect to find life? Are we going to focus our time, our goals, our energy, our devotion on the here and now? Are we going to stake our life on the pursuit of fame and fortune, prestige, romance, health, wealth, and the approval of the world? Are we going to go for the gusto, look out for number one, and strive to get all the goodies this world has to offer? Or are we going to stake our claim on the gospel and love God with all our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves? Are we going to let God tell us what is true, what is wise, what is valuable? And are we going to believe the teachings of Jesus even if it means we lose in this life? Are we willing to value God's approval and following Jesus more than anything else? That's the choice Jesus is confronting them with in the passage. If your family rejects you for following Jesus, will you accept that rejection and continue to follow him? If the government condemns you to death, will you refuse to deny Christ? If the world rejects you because you follow Jesus, will you endure it? The prophetic works of the Old Testament I think help us understand the story of history, and they prepare us for the fact that as the end time nears, it's going to look like the cause of God is hopeless and faithfulness is going to seem foolish. So the prophetic works present the gospel by asking the question, where are you going to turn when that kind of disaster strikes? And I think that's the same question Jesus is asking here. Are you prepared for the time when following Jesus is going to cost you? And whatever the cost is, are you willing to pay it? Now let's look at the parables he tells. This is Luke fourteen, starting in twenty eight through thirty three. 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 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 with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. One of the common ways of understanding these parables is that Jesus is saying you need to understand right off the bat how difficult it's going to be to be my disciple. You don't want to start into being my disciple and then discover that you don't have what it takes because that would be embarrassing and humiliating. So you need to know right away that it's tough. Sit down, decide if you have what it takes, and if you don't have what it takes, then you need to give up before you start. That makes no sense to me. That does not fit with the rest of Scripture. Given everything else scripture teaches, it's just impossible for me to imagine that Jesus would say that kind of thing. Because for one thing, we don't have what it takes. That's a given. Who among us left to ourselves, apart from the work of the Spirit of God in our lives, has what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus? None of us. None of us left to ourselves has what it takes to go the distance. Especially in this context, it seems to me that there's another way to think about these parables and it makes a lot more sense. Look again at the story of the king, because I think it's easier to see the dynamic in that parable. The king sits down and realizes he can't win this battle, so he very wisely sues for peace. He gives up. And the story seems to be commending the king. What fool would enter a battle he knows he's going to lose? But the king is wise. He refuses to enter the battle he knows he's going to lose. Before the other army, the other side even gets there, he sends off a delegation and asks for peace. Likewise, the one who builds the tower wisely stops before he starts, because he knows before he begins that he doesn't have the resources to finish it. So the builder is wise not to start construction on his own, and the king is wise to give up and seek terms of surrender before the other army arrives. I think that's the analogy to our situation with God. The day is coming when we're going to face judgment. The day is coming when we will have to come to terms with God and give an account for ourselves. And what we need to do now is come to terms with him before he gets here. When Jesus returns, it's going to be too late. If I think that someday I'm going to stand before the throne of God and win, I'm crazy. If I think I'm going to argue with Jesus and convince him that I'm really a great person deserving of heaven on my own, then I'm a fool. I'm going to lose that battle. Like the king, I need to go, I'm going to lose. I've got to seek peace now. Like the builder, I need to say I'm not even going to start attempting this on my own. I need a plan B. It is better to give up now and recognize I do not have what it takes and come to terms with Jesus now. In other words, I need to consider the cost of discipleship and say, it's worth it. Because this is a battle I will lose, and the way to win is to follow Jesus. I don't have what it takes on my own, so I'm going to throw my lot in with the gospel. I want to be the guy who looks in his wallet and says, I don't have the money to complete the project. I cannot make myself holy. I cannot solve the problem of my sin. I want to be the king that says, I'm going to lose this battle. What are my other options? I need to recognize when I stand before the judgment seat of God, I will be guilty. I will be found guilty, and I need to figure out what my options are. And the gospel is my other option. My best and wisest choice is to throw myself on the mercy of God and the cross of Christ. So the advice Jesus is giving is you want to be like these guys. They're wise. Assess your situation realistically now and choose to follow Jesus. That's the wise choice. Then he concludes in thirty-four and thirty five, therefore salt is good, but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile, it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Now for us, salt doesn't become unsalty. Sodium chloride remains sodium chloride no matter how long it's sitting in the cupboard. According to some of the commentaries I checked, at the time they didn't have pure salt. Salt was dug out of the ground and was typically sodium chloride, but it was mixed with these other inert materials. And over time that mixed material could leach the sodium chloride out so that it no longer had a salty flavor. So if your salt no longer tastes salty, it can't season anything. It's not good for the field or the dung pile. And I suspect he means something like we would call composting today, and that what's left needs a little bit of salt to be useful for compost, but if there's no salt left at all, it's useless. It's not even as good as a fertilizer. Now I don't know if that's chemically correct or not, but in either case, the point Jesus does seem to be making is that salt has three uses. It can be seasoning, it can be fertilizer, or it can be compost. And if there's no salt left, then it's not good for anything. It's just worthless and to be thrown out. In this context, I think this is just another way of making the same point we've been talking about up to here. So Jesus is turning to the crowds and he's saying, It's good that you're following me, it's good that you're listening to my teaching, but you're worthless if you don't actually take up your cross and become my disciple. You need to make the choice to believe. If you don't believe and embrace the gospel, then you're not my disciple and you're worthless. Following and listening isn't enough. You have to embrace and believe what I'm teaching you. Now to close, I want to spend a little bit more time on what Jesus says in 1433. So therefore, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot become my disciple. Again, we want to keep this verse in context. I think people mistakenly equate this verse with the conversation recorded in Luke 18, where Jesus is talking to the rich young ruler. That man asks Jesus, what must he do to inherit eternal life? And as part of their conversation, Jesus tells the rich young man to sell everything he has and give it to the poor and follow him. And I would argue that Luke 18, that's Luke 18, 22, in that verse Jesus is giving a specific piece of advice given to a specific man who essentially loved his money more than anything else in the world. And Jesus is confronting him with the fact that he loves money more than he cares about following Jesus and gaining eternal life. I don't believe that the Bible teaches that believers must be poor and that it's a sin to be rich. I don't believe that the Bible teaches that you must sell everything you have to become a disciple of Jesus. That's not the picture we see when we look at the New Testament. That's not the way the apostles apply the words of Jesus on this issue. There are many examples of believers working and possessing a lot of wealth. Paul tells the Thessalonians that he wants them to work and make enough money so that they have extra to share with those who are in trouble. Well, that implies they have to have extra. They have to have some measure of wealth. Now I don't want to go too far down that path because that would be a whole nother talk. But I just want to say Jesus is not saying, I want you to sell everything you have and possess nothing. And if you keep back one family heirloom, then you can't follow me. Because that's not the context. That's not what he's been saying throughout this talk. In our context, I actually think he means something more radical than selling your possessions. He has said you have to hate your family members. You have to hate even your own life. You have to be willing to carry your cross to your day of execution. You have to realize that you will lose at the judgment seat of God, and so therefore be willing to say goodbye to your old life to gain life in the kingdom of God. And this is his conclusion. He says, Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Literally, this is something like say goodbye to all that is yours. And I think in this context, it's what he's been saying about hating your father and mother, about hating your own life. It's not that you're not allowed to have nice clothes and a house while living on the earth. It's I can't put that stuff ahead of Jesus. I have to say goodbye to my life in the sense of Jesus comes first. I have to say goodbye to the security of my family and be willing to follow Jesus if I'm forced to make that choice. I have to be willing to forgo the respect of my peers or prestige or even my own life, if it that's the choice that's presented me, follow Jesus or lose that, I have to be willing to renounce that to follow Jesus. So in this context, he's basically been saying if there's anything in your life that's more important than following Jesus, then you can't be his disciple. One of the first lessons of the gospel is that this is where you find eternal life. The gospel is about something better than all that this world has to offer. Believing the gospel presents me with a truth I have to embrace. It tells me not only that I'm a sinner and that I will only be saved and find eternal life through the blood of Jesus, it also tells me true life is not to be found in this world. This world is flawed and marred by sin and death and futility, and true life, life as it was meant to be, is going to be found in the kingdom of God. So the gospel presents me with this choice. Do I believe that or not? Do I want what the gospel promises or do I want something else more? So I don't think Jesus is saying there's some strict test you have to pass in order to ensure that you're saved. He's laying out the very logical choice you have to make as soon as you start considering the gospel. The gospel is at odds with the rest of the philosophies and views of this world. If you embrace and believe the gospel, you're going to be different than most of the world around you. And because you're different, the world is going to hate you and reject you. And Jesus is saying, what are you going to do when that rejection comes? If you want to follow me, you have to endure it. If you want to follow me, you have to give up all that is yours in this world and be willing to lose it to follow me. It's going to cost you to follow Jesus. It could cost you the affection of your family, it could cost you your career, it could cost you the respect and approval of your peers, it could cost you your very life. Is that a cross you're willing to carry? So I think that's what he's saying here. In order to follow Jesus, I have to be willing to renounce what is mine in this world in the sense that whenever there's a choice to be made between following Jesus and keeping something in the world, I let go of the thing in the world and hold on to following Jesus. I have to want what Jesus offers more than what this world offers. And that choice is at the heart of what it means to carry your cross and to be his disciple. And that theme comes up on almost every page of the New Testament. We confront this choice in big ways and in small ways every single day. Every time I have to decide what to say, what not to say, when to speak, how to speak, how to act, how to respond, I'm making this kind of choice to one degree or another. The gospel confronts us with some very important truths, and our lives today are about confronting and applying those truths. Now because we're sinners, we act on those truths foolishly and imperfectly. And one of the difficulties in this passage is that Jesus is speaking very categorically. He's using stark, all or nothing kind of language to make his point. But let's think about what he's saying. And I think the best way to illustrate this is with the apostle Peter. I find this very helpful in sorting this stuff out because of the example Peter gives us. In Matthew ten, thirty-two and thirty three, Jesus says, right before he talks about carrying your cross, he says this, everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before. Before my Father who is in heaven. Now, if you've read the gospels, you know that in a key and crucial moment, Peter denied that he knew Jesus. Jesus had been betrayed by Judas, Jesus had been arrested and hauled before a Jewish court, and the events leading to his crucifixion were set in motion. Here's the time to stand up and be counted. If there's any time for the followers of Jesus to take a stand and say, I'm with him, it's now as Jesus is staring down the cross. And what does Peter do? Peter denies that he even knew Jesus three times. So I would argue that what Peter has done in principle is exactly what Jesus says. If you do that, I'm gonna deny you before the Father. And yet we know that Jesus did not deny Peter before the Father. After the resurrection, Jesus meets Peter face to face and forgives him and commissions him to carry the gospel to the world. The fact that Peter actually failed to confess Jesus before men, and actually denied Jesus before men was evidence that Peter was fearful and weak and sinful at that moment. But it was only a step on his journey of faith. Ultimately, we know that Peter did confess Jesus before men. Ultimately, Peter was jailed and beaten and eventually crucified upside down rather than deny Jesus. So although Jesus is speaking in very strong language, he does not mean one strike and you're out. It is not the case that believers will perfectly and courageously always follow Jesus and heroically endure persecution and rejection without fear or any misstep at all. Sometimes we will fail and sometimes we won't. And it's all part of this journey of faith. But ultimately, over the course of our life, we will choose to follow Him and our lives will show it. Just like Peters did. Jesus is saying the path goes that way and it's gonna be a struggle. I can't promise you a nice and easy life. In fact, I can promise you it's gonna cost you. But there's only one path, and it's a tough one. It's a narrow gate, and not many people find it, and everyone who is not on the path has the potential to become your enemy. So what are you gonna do with that? To be my disciple means that's a choice you have to make. To carry your cross is to be willing to choose to follow Jesus no matter what. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My goal is to explain not only what a passage means, but how to figure it out. If you haven't visited my website, I encourage you to stop by. Rather than being covered with advertisements, my website contains a wealth of Bible study materials designed to help you improve your skills and understanding. It's all free. I don't take any advertising and I don't ask for donations. If you want to thank me, please join the mailing list and subscribe to the podcast, and I'd love to hear what you've learned. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can find more of his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope you'll join me again at Wednesday in the Word.