The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Luke, the 14th chapter:
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. 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 one 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.”Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Jesus is calling you to die today. The truth is that Christians are being persecuted more now, today, than at any other point in history. Some say 10,000 Christians, some say 100,000 Christians are killed every year under persecution. Just look at the Church in China. The State is coming in and demanding that they rip down all their symbols, that they register each congregation member, that they submit all their sermons and teachings for prior approval. Any way you cut it, the story isn’t good for Christians today, and it never has been. Christians are persecuted because they are disciples of Christ not because their unfriendly or unwelcoming, and being a disciple of Christ is a dangerous thing.
Jesus has never lied about that. Multiple times throughout the Scriptures, He warns us that we are going to be called to lay down our lives. He tells us that if we love our father or mother or wife or children or brothers or sisters or even our own lives more than Him, we cannot be His disciples. If we are unwilling to sacrifice all that we have been given for the sake of Christ, then we aren’t His disciples. If we are unwilling to go against our family for His sake, then we aren’t His disciples. If we are unwilling to stand against those whom we love to show them who Jesus is, What He’s done, what He’s called us to do, then we aren’t His disciples.
Whoever doesn’t pick up his cross and follow Him cannot be His disciple. And, I don’t think that means what a lot of Christians have said it’s meant. Sometimes, we take that to mean a struggle or a something that bothers us. I think this is directly referring to the idea that if you’re not willing to go to the death on the fact that you are a Christian, then you are absolutely not a disciple of Christ. And I know that’s not very politic to say, but it’s true. If you’re not sacrificing your life, your comfort, your freedom for the sake of Christ, you can’t be a Christian because you have made these things to be your God, and not Him.
Honestly, I think we, as Christians, here in America, should be ashamed. We think it’s persecution for us when we the government is thinking about taking away our tax exempt status. We think it’s persecution when there’s nothing wholesome to watch on TV. We think it’s persecution when people call us bigoted. We think all these things are persecution when our brothers and sisters are literally being slaughtered because they refuse to bow the knee to the government, to the militia, to another religious extremist. We have no idea. We should be ashamed of ourselves. It’s not to say that we shouldn’t be working to make life peaceful for others, and thereby making it peaceful for us, but to think that the world has anything to give us but pain and sorrow and death is to miss what Jesus is telling us today.
Jesus is telling us that it all has to be laid on the line. It doesn’t mean that you must be persecuted to be a disciple, or that you must hate your family to be a disciple, but when that day comes for you, to take it and give glory to God. If you can’t take up your death as Christ took up His cross, then you must really consider whether your faith was genuine or if it was just a façade.
I know that none of us really will understand this until we face it ourselves. I can’t tell you how people will react when they’re faced with it. I can tell you that a bunch of Christian bishops were faced with death back in the fifth century and they all ran away from the faith. I can tell that certain martyrs asked for more persecution. I can tell you that other men and women laid down their lives hoping to save others. I can tell you some people walked away when the going got a little tough. How are you going to do?
Have you considered this for yourself? That’s what Jesus is asking. If you want to build a new house, don’t you try to plan out the budget ahead of time? If you were the leader of Canada, and the US declared war on you, wouldn’t you try to see if you could even stand a chance of fighting them? If you need a new car, don’t you save for it? If you are planning your year’s schedule, don’t you sit down and make your lesson plans? We think so much about what is to come, why wouldn’t we do the same thing when it comes to our faith? Why wouldn’t we want to consider what we would lose if we gave up the faith?
Let’s think about it: you lose paradise. That’s the big one, right? You give up the faith in the face of persecution and you lose eternal life with Christ. You gain hell, if you could say that’s a gain at all. But, that’s the ultimate thing, right? Jesus says this makes it like you’ve lost your essence. If you forsake the faith, you lose that which makes you you. If salt loses its essence, its saltiness, it’s not useful for anything. If you lose the faith, you give up everything, you give up even yourself. And what is that faith you give up? You lose the Sacraments. You lose the strength you tangibly get through the Sacrament of the Altar; you lose the assurance of looking back to your Baptism. You lose God speaking to you through His Word. The world is always searching for some word from God, even making up words from Him. You lose the actual Word of God for you. You lose someone telling you are forgiven week in and week out. You lose the fellowship of the saints, the mutual consolation of the brethren. You lose all those things that should be most important to you, and gain hell.
It really does seem pretty dumb, doesn’t it? You give up all of this, all that you get in this place, just to get some kind of comfort or ease. But, this is what we must consider. If the things of this world, including our family, our friends, even our own lives, are more dear to us than what we find when we enter in through these doors, then your faith is no faith at all. If you’re willing to give this all up, you have no faith. You are not a disciple of Christ.
You’re going to hear today the promise of a teacher, that she will take her vows so seriously, she’d rather die than give them up. God give her strength. Many teachers have taken these vows. Pastors take these vows. You heard me take them before you. Those brave men and cities that stood before the emperor and vowed to confess the Christian faith literally laid their necks bare in confessing the Augsburg Confession. Many teachers of the faith, many pastors, many confessors died for the faith, and we thank God for their example, knowing that it can be done; you can die for the sake of the faith. You, too, can be like them. The day is coming when you may have to be. May we take that day with confidence.
I think you can have some confidence in that day. I really do. I think you can know that you will greet that day and die in hope. First, you’re here. That truly is no easy task. It’s hard to be present in this place consistently. But you’re here to hold sacred God’s Word and gladly hear and learn it. Second, you come back! That’s big, too. Third, you hear here the very reason that you would want to do such a thing, that you would desire even to be martyred for the sake of Christ: that Jesus Christ laid down His life for you, that He did not value His own life above yours, that He turned from His family for the sake of your redemption, that He weighed the cost and saw the value of bringing to you salvation.
We don’t often look at Christ’s death as an example, like, He did this so follow in His footsteps. We usually look at the death of Christ as the victim, the one who suffered in our place, or the victor, the one who conquered sin, death, and the devil. But, Christ as example is useful, too. To imagine the God of the Universe coming to sit on the seat of the cross in your place, to see how He willingly laid down His life for you, to value the redemption won for you so much that He put Himself so far underneath it, should inspire us to look at our lives similarly. We should be holding our lives so tenderly that we’re willing to drop them at a moment’s notice in order to serve another, but most especially to confess the faith.
And by God’s grace, you can and you will. You have, in Christ, been given the strength to do such a thing. Every diaper you changed, every friend’s tear that hit your shoulder, every neighbor’s driveway you plowed, every dish you put away, every time you served in your vocation was practice for the day when you’ll be called upon to fulfill your ultimate vocation of Christ’s disciple. If you have been enduring through your earthly vocations, the calling placed upon you by God to serve your neighbor, whether that’s as a teacher, a husband, a wife, a child, a friend, whatever, then you have been practicing for the day when you must confess the faith. Because it is only faith that gives those vocations meaning. If you hold these people dear in your service to them, if you hold their needs above your own, you have begun to experience what it is like to confess the faith at the end.
And how do you do that? God has provided a way, ways, actually. How do you get strength for these vocations? We’ve already mentioned them. Be here. Be here to hear the Word of God. Be here to hear the absolution of your sins, to hear that they have been taken away for as many times as you come. Be here to remember your Baptism. Be here to receive the Lord’s body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins, for the strengthening of your faith. Be here to meditate upon His Word, to give you the basis for your meditation for the entire week. These things will keep you in the one true faith unto life everlasting. These are how Christ comes to you and strengthens you. These are how you know you will persevere. These the Lord promises to use to give you that strength of the martyrs. These the Lord promises to use to give that strength for each and every day.
How do you know if you will endure? You may not know the words you will say if and when your martyrdom comes, but the Lord will give you strength. If the sword comes at your neck, stand even taller, because Jesus has promised to raise you from the dead. If you are thrown in prison, carry your shackles with pride that you are to be counted among the likes of Peter and Paul. If you are persecuted, fired from your jobs, made fun of, count it a blessing that you are following in the footsteps of Jesus when the onlookers mocked Him, jeered at Him, took His life from Him. As a disciple of Christ, look to Him who laid down His life for you, to forgive your sins, to bring you to Himself forever. He is all the strength you need, for even in your weakness, He has given you the medicine of immortality from this pulpit, this lectern, this altar, even from this font. He is faithful, and even though you die, yet will He bring you life. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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