Summary
Discipleship
Before ascending into heaven, Jesus gave the Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" Matthew 28:19-20. The work of the Church, then, is not to gather a crowd but to make disciples. Jesus himself was never interested in numbers. Crowds gathered around him, certainly—but when he turned to teach what discipleship actually requires, the crowds thinned. After his hard sayings in John 6, many of his followers turned back. The rich young man in Matthew 19 walked away grieving. Jesus was making disciples, not assembling admirers.
In Luke 14:25-33, Jesus addresses a Passover pilgrim throng heading to Jerusalem with three demanding statements, each ending with the same refrain: "cannot be my disciple." First: "Whoever does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, cannot be my disciple." The word hate here does not mean contempt. Matthew renders the same teaching as loving no one "more than me." Christ must be the first love of the disciple's heart—every other love, however good and God-given, ordered beneath him.
Second: "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." The cross is any suffering endured for being a Christian. Peter writes that if anyone suffers as a Christian, he should not be ashamed but glorify God in that name 1 Peter 4:16. Discipleship is a call to endurance—through awkward moments at work, strained relationships, and the cost of standing for God's truth in family and community. Suffering comes; the disciple does not lay the cross down.
Third: "Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." Scripture interprets Scripture here. The book of Acts shows that the Lord did not require every believer to literally surrender every possession. What Jesus addresses is the attitude of the heart: a willingness to give up anything because Christ is Lord of everything. The disciple is a steward, not an owner, holding all things with an open hand.
Then Jesus tells two parables—the man building a tower, the king going to war—to drive home a single point: count the cost. And when we honestly count it, we discover we cannot pay. We cannot keep Christ as our first love every hour. We drop the cross. We clench our fists around what we want to keep for ourselves. The Lord brings us to the intersection of his call and our "I can't"—to the end of ourselves.
That intersection is precisely where the Gospel meets us. The one who calls us to count the cost is the one who paid the cost of our redemption. The spotless Lamb bore the wrath of God in our place; the tomb is empty; the sacrifice has been accepted. And in the waters of Holy Baptism, God makes us his disciples—"baptizing them" is how the Great Commission says disciples are made. Day after day, when we fall short, he speaks his word of absolution, restores our love for Christ, walks beside us under the cross, and pries open our clenched fists to free us into the beauty of life under his Lordship. The life of Discipleship is lived entirely under the empowerment of the One who first claimed us as his own.
Video citations
- "Discipleship" 5-25-25 — Do open your Bibles, please, with me to the 14th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. If you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture, you're going to find that on page 67 in the New Testament. Luke, the…