9-07-2025

“WORLDLY COST, HEAVENLY GAIN”

Text: Luke 14:25-35

Sunday September 7, 2025 – Pentecost 13

Trinity – Creston

       Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Our text for this Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost is the Gospel lesson form Luke 14 that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind us that as we take comfort and are secure in our salvation, their will be costs and sacrifices in this earthly life.  May we continue to be a beacon of hope to those around us that do not know you  Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

       Building a building ain’t cheap. It costs. A lot of developers have put out a big proud sign with their name on it over a downtown lot and then gone bankrupt, leaving an embarrassing start of steel and concrete.

Going to war is risky. A king, a president, maybe a dictator is putting the fate and future of a whole nation on the line—at the cost of countless lives.

Perhaps surprisingly, sea salt, mostly sodium chloride, also contains other minerals that can be worked into fertilizer to make soil more productive. Unfortunately, it breaks down rather quickly, losing those helpful elements.

In our message for today, Jesus talks about each of these. All tough. And they’re each illustrations of how difficult the Christian life can be. But these are just the illustrations. Jesus also gives us a scenario we really may face.

God forbid that you ever find yourself in this situation: Someone you love very much—a spouse, a child, a parent, an in-law—isn’t a Christian and not only makes that obvious but takes every opportunity to nip, to rag, to pick at your faith.

Day after day. Morning, noon, and night. A constant barrage. That’s a tough life! To bear it takes courage and strength. And that’s the real-life lesson Jesus teaches us in our text.

To Be a Disciple of Christ Requires Courage and Strength.

       I.   To be a disciple of Christ is to follow him alone (vv 25–27).

A.  Eager crowds are following Jesus; everyone wants in. So, Jesus alerts them to what following him means.

1.   Our text is part of what some call Jesus’ “travel narrative” in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ final trip to Jerusalem.

2.   Jesus knows where he’s headed—and why.

3.   It’s not a trip everyone will really want to take with him.

B.  Jesus is walking a definite path; some would prefer another. But you cannot walk both ways.

1.   Introit: “Make me understand the way of your precepts. . . . Put false ways far from me.”

2.   Old Testament Reading: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil” (Deut 30:15).

3. Jesus says, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (16:13).

C.  Jesus warns that the path of discipleship could come to this: hating one’s own family (v 26).

1.   We are, of course, to love father, mother, family.

2.   The Bible, though, uses “hate” to describe anyone who is not the loved one (Gen 29:30–33). There can only be one Number One.

3.   A father who sets a wicked example, the mother who neglects bringing her children to church, grown children who keep their own children from Baptism, sister-in-law who protests prayer at the Thanksgiving table—none of these can be the loved one. There can be only one.

D.  Jesus’ trip to Jerusalem will take him to the cross, and being his disciple means following him to our crosses.

1.   Loving Christ over husband, wife, kids, family is one of the most painful crosses!

2.   It takes courage and strength!

       II.  To be a disciple of Christ comes at a cost (vv 28–33).

A. Here, Jesus gives two of those illustrations we talked about.

1.   The ill-advised tower everyone can see, and when it’s left unfinished, it earns the builder mock­ery. He failed to count the cost!

2.   Any king who’d go to war outnumbered two to one would be a fool. Failed to count the cost!

B.  What are those costs when it comes to being disciples of Jesus?

1.   That is, perhaps losing the affection of our families (9:59–62)!

2.   All worldly possessions, Jesus says (v 33). Like the nest egg you worry God won’t stretch far enough, the extra 3 or 4 or 5 percent of income that would complete your tithe, the weekend place at the lake that kept you away from the Divine Service last Sunday.

The ridicule and condescension of family and others for making the decision to give up  a better financial career and move family away from what is familiar.

3.   You cannot have the world and follow Jesus too (9:57–58).

C.  Count the cost! Do you want out now?

1.   Lots of Jesus’ eager crowd soon enough did opt out (8:13–14).

2.   Following Jesus, being a disciple, will be costly! Will we start to build that tower, follow Jesus, and then not finish? As Christians, we’ll always be outnumbered, like the king going out to war. Will we settle for peace with the world and lose Christ?

3.   It takes courage and strength to follow Christ!

       III. To be a disciple of Christ means being the salt the Holy Spirit uses to point others to Christ (vv 34–35).

A.  Here’s Jesus’ other illustration of Christian discipleship: salt.

1.   It seems odd—salt losing its saltiness, its “taste.” Here, though, Jesus is going beyond table salt.

2.   Salt has in the past been used as fertilizer. If you work it into the soil before the helpful elements break down, it has long-term benefits.

3.   But if not used in time for that, what good is it?

B.  Christ Jesus has made you his disciples.

1.   He did go to Jerusalem, was abandoned by all those fair-weather followers and even by his closest disciples, and he did die on his cross.

2.   That earned for you forgiveness for all sin, including loving other people, other things, more than you love him.

3.   It earned for you eternal life in heaven.

4.   And by your baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are his disciples.

C.  That means he has made you salt.

1.   To be a disciple of Christ, to follow him alone, to renounce the ways of the world, is not to withdraw from the world.

2.   You are the salt used by the Holy Spirit to point others to the perfect and all-sufficient saving work of Christ.

D.  But living in a hostile world that criticizes and mocks your values takes courage and strength.

1.   Those family members who oppose your faith, the world when it sees you make a good start in your Christian walk and then fall—again and again—will mock and scorn you.

2.   The easy way out is to withdraw into apathy (indifference).

3.   You have to be all in! This will be difficult! It takes courage and strength!

E.  So we pray in the Collect: “O merciful Lord, You did not spare Your only Son but delivered Him up for us all. Grant us courage and strength to take up the cross and follow Him.”

1.   And he does gives us courage and strength, he does maintain our saltiness, as we abide always in the Scriptures and in the gathering of all the faithful around Word and Sacrament.

2.   Only by the very grace of God can we have the courage and strength to bear our cross and follow Jesus. But this he gives.

It’s true.  Following Jesus and being a Christian is costly, painful, and difficult.  And with it, a life of peace and certainty amidst those burdens and a heavenly home forever.  Amen.

 Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Amen.