You Can't Follow Jesus...Unless
If you desire to be his disciple, there is no special formula. There is no invitation that will come in your mailbox. It is this. “Come after Jesus.”
What have you had to give up to follow Jesus?
In Luke 14, Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees on a Sabbath day (14:1). In the Gospels, Jesus is typically either going to a meal, eating a meal, or coming from a meal. This means one of two things: he was a Baptist (I am kidding) or he knew the dining table was a place of intimacy. Whoever you opened up your home to was a sign of association and a desire to talk to one another more. This is why Jesus gets so much grief when he eats with tax collectors, women, sinners, and Gentiles.
Jesus did a lot of great things here. He heals a man of dropsy. He gives a parable concerning the table, telling the man who had invited him, “When you host a dinner, don’t invite someone just because they will invite you back. Invite those who cannot repay you, not your friends but the poor, crippled, lame, and blind.”
With this comment, it gets uncomfortable. And what normally happens when someone says something uncomfortable? Often, someone in the room tries to turn the conversation. This is what happened when one of the guests said, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” He is trying to turn the conversation, just like you or I may do if someone talks about the presidential debate from Thursday night or your crazy uncle talks about his romantic life. But Jesus does not allow it to be turned.
He uses this opportunity to give a parable of the Great Banquet and said:
“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 crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to 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.’” -Luke 14:15-24
Friends, Jesus gives this parable because, despite what most of us think, not everyone who was invited shall taste the banquet. Not everyone who simply hears the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be eating bread in the kingdom of God. Not everyone who hears the Good News will actually desire to be a disciple of Jesus.
You Cannot Be a Disciple of Jesus…Unless
You love Jesus and hate everything else.
There were great crowds pressing in to listen to Jesus, so he taught the most important topic in the history of mankind: he outlined what it means to be a disciple of Jesus because He is the narrow door to a relationship with God. He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
After the parable, Jesus says, “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.”
We cannot love Jesus as an add-on. He cannot even be 1A and our spouses, children, or parents be 1B. We must follow Jesus and hate everything else in comparison.
- “If we do not hate mother, father, wife, brother, sister, or even ourselves, then we cannot be his disciple.
- To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:59-62).
This is not calling for Christians to become homeless monks who leave their wives, kids, and jobs behind. This is not necessarily about leaving your job to go into Christian ministry.
This is about, “Are you going to take a seat at the banquet beside the host because you love him, or are you going to choose to do anything else?”
Do you love Jesus? Not the idea of him. Not simply what He can offer you. Do you love Him? Jesus asked this question to Peter after his resurrection. In John 21, Peter reconnects with Jesus on the bank of the sea as he is cooking some fish. Jesus is appearing again to the disciples to prove that he did not fake his resurrection but that he is risen and alive. He then begins to ask Peter these questions:
“When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ He said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’” He said to him a second time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ He said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’” He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ and he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’”
Jesus asks Peter over and over again (1) to restore him from his denial but (2) for Peter to affirm his love for Jesus, his deity through his omniscience, and that He will do as Jesus said, for “if you love him, you will obey his words.”
Peter had placed his own life above Jesus’ in his threefold denial. Jesus reaffirmed his love three times and then what does he say, “Follow me.”
Jesus is asking us the same question. “Do you love me?”
If you are reading this, you have probably had some success in your life. Good jobs, family, friends, accomplishments, accolades, and good lives. And we may love these things. We can enjoy them, but if we are going to be disciples of Jesus, then we have to hate everything else in comparison to Him and we must love Him. Loving Jesus is THE most important action you can do. We love Jesus because of who He is and what He has done. Nothing can stand in our way.
This love is even greater than the love between a husband and a wife because “God shows his love in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). I love my wife, but I did not marry her before I knew her and before we showed each other that we loved each other. But God said, “You’re mine” while we had nothing to give him. We are the beggars, the lame, the poor, the sinful, yet this great banquet host still said, “come to me. If you want to be with me, you can come.”
But wanting to be a disciple of Jesus means we must hate everything else and love Him. Hate is a strong word - and sometimes we don’t like it. But in this context, it is a good word. To hate something means that we intentionally love it less. We move it down our priority list.
How do we express our love for Jesus? It means that:
You Come After Jesus and Renounce Everything Else
“Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
We have to come after Jesus to be his disciple. He is the object of our faith. Not Mary. Not preaching. Not baptism. Not good works. Not being good at your job. Not treating your family right. While all of these things are good and have their proper place, Jesus Christ and him crucified is all that we should lay our assurance in. He is the can’t-miss prospect to hire for our company. He is the investment that we will never lose out on. We may have a number of different denominations represented or some who are not even believers. None of those matter. Jesus Christ is the object of our faith.
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:7-8).
We must bear our cross and come after him.
Billy Graham, the famous evangelist who held crusades all across the world for years, described what it meant to take up your cross. Rev. Graham said that bearing your cross (1) means that you take it up intentionally. You cannot carry a cross by accident. No one can place it on you. Even the cross of Christ was not placed on him without his consent. It also (2) means that you face one way. If there is a cross on your back, you cannot swivel your head. You cannot look behind you. Your face is set in one direction. It also (3) means that there is no going back. Once the cross is no you, you bear it. You cannot trade it in. You cannot get someone else to bear it for you. It is yours and yours alone. You have to let everything else go and bear it and come after Him.
Matthew 4:18-22 outlines the love we should have for Jesus. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
The disciples “immediately” dropped their nets. No hesitation. No looking back. None. Why? It wasn’t because what they were doing wasn’t good. It was because Jesus was so much better. This is what Jesus is saying. He says, “you have to renounce everything else and come after me.” As we see in the Gospels, they follow Him. They believe and confess in Him as their Lord and Savior. They do not grab onto any other religion or false Messiah. They do not even just try to be good. They come after the risen Jesus Christ.
When I decided on a wedding date with my wife, do you know what I did? I made sure that there was nothing else scheduled on that day. I didn’t need to buy a car, look for a new house, or schedule a meeting. I renounced everything else. Everything. Nothing was going to stand in my way to stand in Burns, Tennessee, on September 24th, 2022 and marry Danyel unless God took me home.
The same is with Jesus. As long as we have breath in our lungs, nothing should stand in our way to come to him. The difference is this- I had to wait for the date of my wedding. You do not have to wait for Jesus. For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation (1 Cor. 6:2). If you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess that you need Him, you will be saved (Rom. 10:9)
If you want to be his disciple, you must renounce all that you have and all that you are. He is worth it. You must love Jesus. To love Jesus means you must hate everything else in comparison. Hate is a strong word, but here, it means that we intentionally love other things less. We have to choose to deprioritize them so we can love Jesus. We must humble ourselves so He can be exalted.
If we truly want to follow Jesus and be his disciples, then we must love him. And if we love him, we will obey him. When we obey him, we will be useful. We will be salt and light in the earth. We will show others the glory of Jesus.
You cannot be a disciple of Jesus unless you love Jesus and hate everything else in comparison, unless you renounce all that you are and have, and unless you are salty.
We have to come after Jesus and be useful for the kingdom of God. Do you want to be a disciple? The cost is high, but Jesus is worth it.
You can have everything and really have nothing.
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. For whoever would save his life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul. -Mark 8:34-36
Those who skipped the banquet had everything they wanted in their own eyes. But they had nothing. It did not matter because it was all going to fade away.
Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[a]destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
What does it matter to have your house, your possessions, and even your family if you do not have the one who offers himself to you. Jesus will remain.
Whitney Houston had it right. “I have nothing, nothing, if I don’t have you.” We have nothing without Jesus.
You can have nothing and really have everything.
Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
This is how our relationship with Christ should look like. If we want to be his disciple, then we must give everything up. This man sold everything. For a moment, it looked as though he had nothing. He had sold everything attached to his name. But, he did not have nothing. He had everything because he knew the treasure was hidden in a field. Even though we cannot physically see it, our relationship with Christ is like this. It is hidden, yet it is there, ready to be fully revealed.
I want you to pay attention to the phrase “in his joy.” In his joy, he gave everything up.
You can take part in this joy. In his joy, he left everything to go to the banquet. In his joy, he hated everything and loved Jesus. In his joy, he renounced everything and came after Jesus. In his joy, he became a disciple of Jesus.
The Father is the Master who has sent His Servant Jesus to give us the invitation to the Great Banquet. We are the ones who have received the invitation.
Will you hold onto everything else? Then you will not come to the banquet. You cannot be his disciple.
If you love Jesus and hate everything else, come after him and renounce everything else, then you can be his disciple. You can come the the wedding feast of the Lamb.
If you desire to be his disciple, there is no special formula. There is no invitation that will come in your mailbox. It is this. “Come after Jesus.”