This Man Began To Build And Was Not Able To Finish

So this is the final Sunday in the year and it's New Year's Eve. And so many of us are thinking whether you do New Year's resolutions or not, that's not what the sermon is going to be about really. Though it is a time when things are closing and something new is starting, it is a time where we reflect. You're sort of at a crossroads and you're going, okay, so what was life like in the past? What was good? What was bad? And what's life going to be like and what do I want life to be like in the future? Good as opposed to bad. None of us would say, well, I hope that more difficulty comes this year. And so it is a time of reflection. It is a time of making plans. All of us do it. All of us have these sorts of desires. And I hope that by the end of this morning, you'll understand what our, as Christians, our goal ought to be, our resolutions ought to be, what resolutions we already have ought to be strengthened.

And my goal by the end of the sermon this morning is that our resolution to follow Jesus Christ will be strengthened. That that's not something that we decide to take on and take off like a winter jacket, but it's something that becomes more and more a part of us and it grows within us. That our commitment to Jesus Christ, to his word, to his church, to his law grows. And that our witness grows as a result of it. That's the goal of the sermon this morning. That's what I want you to walk away from. As you're reflecting about your life, what the year's been like in the past, what more of life's been like, or what you want things to be like in the future, I want this to be the current that runs through it, the theme that bridges the past and into the future. Would you please stand for the reading of God's Word now? From Luke chapter 14, verses 25 through 35. This is the Word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Now large crowds were going along with 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 carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him. saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation to ask for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. 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. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, a word about this passage. You're probably going to hear another sermon on it before 2018 is over. Because next week we're going back to our regular sermons through Luke. And we're picking up in chapter 13. So here's hoping that we can get through two chapters in a year, right? But if we do, you'll hear from this passage again. So I'm not going to be focusing on the end of the passage, but rather more toward the beginning. But if you stick around, you'll hear the second half in a few months. So I want to start out by noting that there were crowds following Jesus. Lots and lots of people. Wherever he went, they would come to him. They would follow him. They would be with him. And so Jesus makes an assumption here.

Because we understand by how he responds to them, he's assuming something about them. So what does Jesus presume about the crowds that are following him? Well, he presumes they're following him for a reason. And what's that reason? Well, it's to become his disciple. They're following him around. They're seeing the miracles he's performing. They're listening to his teaching. And so presumably they want to get something from him. They want to be like him. And so he takes time now and he says to all of them, he says, listen, here's what it means to be my disciple. That's really what our whole discourse is about. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? What does it mean to be a Christian? Now, if you could describe the crowds following Jesus, how would you describe them? What do you think the people were like? Do you think it was one big monolithic group that all had the same interests and the same priorities and the same desires? We don't know what it is, but we do know that that's not what it was. There was people there for all kinds of reasons. People following Jesus for who knows why.

Certainly there were people there who had a genuine interest in his teaching and becoming his disciples. But we also understand there's lots of people there who weren't there for that. They were there because they were sick and they wanted to be healed. They were there because they heard that this guy, he was the Messiah, he was the promised one, and they were tired of being oppressed and occupied by the Roman government. And what did they expect of Jesus? You come in, you displace those Romans, and you set up shop. And we're going to follow you. You're going to be a strong king. a powerful king. You're going to right all of the wrongs that have been done to us. And so they're following him. So is their interest in becoming a disciple of Jesus or is their interest in gaining something for themselves? Well, we understand that their interest is gaining something for themselves. If you think, I don't know, pastor, I don't know if that's right, let me rephrase the question to you. Why do people go to church today? It's an equivalent structure. People came around Jesus because they were interested in what was going on there.

So why do people come to church, which is how we congregate around Jesus now? Why do people come to church? Do we always come with pure motives and sincere desires to become more like Jesus? Not always. Sometimes, yes, but not always. Why do people come to church? Well, sometimes it's just a habit. It's just what we do. That's what I grew up doing. It's what we do. Maybe it's your culture. You know, there's expectations. People expect you to come. Maybe you come because your parents expect you to come. Or you want your kids to go to church, so you come to church. Maybe it's because someone's told you that you've got problems in your life, and if you go to church, Jesus is going to help fix all those problems for you. All the pains, all the hardships, the relationships, and the poverty, and all the rest of it. If you come and you become a Christian, that's all going to get straightened out. People are at church for these reasons and more. So Jesus takes time with this mixed group of people, these crowds, and you and I were in the crowd. We would fit right in.

I mean, we're not all Jewish, but in terms of the sorts of things that are at work in our hearts, we're right there with them. And so Jesus takes time to teach the crowds. And what he says to them in a nutshell is he says, following me means hatred for everything else, even what's closest to you. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, children, hatred for them. That's what being my disciple is. Now, that's like a bucket of cold water to your face, isn't it? We came to you and we thought that you were going to help. We thought you were going to heal. We thought you were going to fix and reconcile and do all this work. And he says, wait a minute. Being my disciple means hating all the people that are closest to you. And we balk at it and we go, that can't, what a hard thing to say. Now, I want you to understand something. Well, let me ask you this. Is he telling you that you have to

literally hate and go away from and despise and be nasty to, hateful towards your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your wife, your children. No. No, that's not what he's saying. Quite the contrary. We're going to come to that. What is he saying? What he's saying is, for you to be my disciple, I have to be the most important person in your life. Not even the people who are closest to you, who you share blood with, are more important than I am. And if they are, then you can't be my disciple. And that's scandalous enough. He's not saying you have to hate them and be hateful towards them. He's saying, I'm more important than they are. Because I'm the God of heaven and earth. And they're not. And if you'll be my disciple, if you're going to come after me, even they can't compete for priority. It's still a difficult thing to hear. That we're not to be... How often do we think that

Coming to Jesus is what's going to fix those problems with those people. A lot of us have just spent time with our families or not spent time with our families because the tension got over a certain level. And it's only natural that you would want that tension to be resolved, that it would be fixed, that there would be unity, that all of the problems that exist would be washed away, cleaned up, straightened out. And yet if you've become a Christian, if you didn't grow up in a Christian home, or if the people that you love, your mothers and brothers and sisters and all of that, are not Christians, you realize that when you became a Christian, or as you've grown more serious about your faith, that those relationships have actually gotten more tense. Actually, tenser. I learned that tenser is a word. I didn't know tenser was a word, but it is a word. Those relationships have gotten tenser. Not easier.

And why is that? Well, it's because the people that you're around who don't know Jesus Christ understand intrinsically what Jesus is saying here. Which is that if you're going to become a Christian and your whole life, therefore, is going to be flipped on its head and changed, that your relationship with them has somehow been displaced. It has been changed. They're no longer the priority, the highest priority. They're not anymore. And it creates an environment of greater tension. And it's very difficult. You know, when Abraham left Haran, the Lord comes to him and says, go out to a land that I'll show you. And he's going to take his wife, right? And he's going to take Lot and his family. So these two families, Abraham, his nephew, their families, all their wealth, they're going to leave. Why? Because Abraham was special. Abraham was good. There was something unique about him. No. Abraham was a man that God chose.

who is living happily and comfortably with wealth, with a family, and all of that, in a land, and God calls him out of it, do you think there might have been family tension when he decides to pick up and leave? To take his wife away? To take his nephew away? He's separating of families. Now, why was there this separation? Hebrews tells us that Abraham, by faith, went out into a land that he did not know, a land of promise, looking for a city whose architect and builder was God. A city with foundations. What happened? Abraham was chosen by God, plucked out of that life, and he forsook his family. He left them behind. All except his wife and Lot, and then eventually Lot. You remember when their herdsmen are up fighting on the hills, and they go, there's not enough room for all of our sheep. And so what happened? Abraham says, Lot, pick where you want to go. Lot says, I'm going to go down to the valley. And Abraham says, go ahead.

And so I want you to see that as people come to faith and as Jesus Christ becomes the center of their life, and that really is a process, that's not something that just happens. It does have a definite starting time, but then it's a process of it getting worked in further and further and spreading throughout our lives. It creates tension with the people that are closest to us. And we cannot believe the lie that we can somehow maintain those relationships as they were commitment to jesus christ increase it cannot happen jesus christ says if this is what's more important to you you cannot be my disciple it really isn't either or in terms of priority so by faith abraham struck out to live as an alien because his priorities had changed peace with his family peace with the world gaining their acceptance the sorts of things that are important to us as well were no longer the things that uh that dictated his life he went out by faith

And this is the same sort of pressure that you and I feel so regularly that I don't even know that we realize it. Have you ever been in a conversation and somebody says something and you have a thought, but before the thought's even done running through your head, you go, I can't say that. Because if I say that, they'll all get mad. But I know it's true. You've had this, Dan's smiling. You have this regularly, huh? But you regularly say it. He goes ahead and says it. Some of us do. And all of us have experienced this. We go, if I say that, tension. If I say that, jobs on the line. If I say that, consequences. We all feel it. We go, I can't even think that way because if I do, it's going to make conflict. And you're absolutely right.

What do you want me to say? No, it won't. There's a gracious way. You can thread that needle in such a way that there won't ever be conflict. That's not true. You can say things lovingly, and you must say things lovingly. But saying things lovingly doesn't necessarily avoid conflict. It gives glory to God, but it doesn't make the relationships just smooth and easy. In fact, a lot of the time, saying things in love is actually what brings the conflict, because you wouldn't have said it otherwise. James 4.4. It says this, We see this tension all through Scripture that the people of God, to the extent that they're devoted to the Lord, they get a couple of responses. One of them is hatred and conflict. One of them is fear, depending on how God's moving at the time. You remember in Acts, the disciples were doing all these wondrous acts and it says that the unbelievers held them in high regard and would have nothing to do with them. Because they were afraid. They went, I can't, they are not like us. They have a priority that is not in line with ours and we're going to stay away. Sometimes that's the response. That's not often the response in our experience. But that is one of the responses. Is that people will not want to be around the people of God because they have some

level of fear. Most often what comes is conflict, relational conflict, relational tension, brokenness. And every one of us wants to fix it, see it resolved. I want it to go away. What do I have to do to make the tension dissipate? Jesus says discipleship is not making the tension dissipate. You cannot be my disciple if you do not love me more than anyone else. He restates it another way in verse 27. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And they would have understood at the time what carrying a cross was. Jesus was not the first person to be crucified. They would have understood that you're carrying your own death sentence. That's what it means to carry your cross. It's to take the thing that's going to kill you and carry it for your execution or to the place of your death.

It would be the most miserable thing to have to know that when I get to where I'm supposed to go with this thing, that's the end of it. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So, what are our crosses? Well, historically, literally, crosses were a part of... For Jesus to say this to the crowds that were there right then, he could be speaking very literally. There were those there that were hearing that we're going to face this end. And when he says you have to carry your cross, they thought, oh, you mean... I might get killed on a cross for following you. And he's, yes. So is that the only kind of cross that there is to bear? No. In fact, most of us probably won't end up in that particular situation, if any of us, having to carry our own instrument of death. And yet each one of us has a cross to bear, a cross to carry. And it's weird when you start talking about crosses to bear.

depending on how you're wired, you'll hit that reality differently. Some of us go, I don't want to carry a cross. I really just don't want to carry a cross. But some of us who are more zealous will say, where's my cross? I've got to go find a cross to carry. And you go trying to find someone to hate you. And to some of us it's funny, but it's funny because we think, that's so absurd. Why would you go around trying to find a cross to bear? They say, well, because I can't be a disciple if I don't have a cross, so I've got to go find a cross. Listen, you will have crosses to bear. You don't have to go look for them. Faithfulness to Jesus Christ will bring your cross. You don't have to go look for it. And you'll find that when it connects in your brain, I have a cross to bear. I have a burden to carry. You'll find that you don't want to carry it because you're human.

That's our natural inclination is to go, I don't want to do that. That's hard. It's scary. It's burdensome. It's difficult. But Paul tells Timothy, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. And it won't always be death on a cross. But we're promised that we will suffer. We're promised that there will be conflict between us and the world. That all who follow Jesus Christ aren't going to have peace and ease and comfort. And this would have been very difficult for the crowds to hear, right? Jesus is saying, I'm not here to make your life easy. It's not why I came. And yet he did come to bless them. He did come to give them something that they couldn't get in any other place and in any other way. You have to take hold of it. You have to bear your cross. Jesus says, whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And then if you can just imagine being there or just, you know,

Think about yourself sitting here going, this is really heavy. I thought resolutions and all this was supposed to be a happy time. This was supposed to be a light time. This was supposed to be enjoyable and easy and refreshing and new and all of that. And here you are. It's very heavy. It's very discouraging. It's very weighty, what Jesus is saying. He's setting the bar very high for discipleship. This isn't like the premium platinum plan discipleship. This is the only plan. This is the minimum threshold. You have to love me more than you love anyone else. It's also hard to grab a hold of because we're all sitting here going, okay, what are my cross? Okay, cross. So I'm supposed to bear it. I have a cross. And by faith, I want to bear my cross. What is it? Where is it? Am I missing it? These are the thoughts that a sincere Christian should be having. These are the thoughts you should be having right now. Okay, what are my crosses? What am I supposed to be bearing? What am I neglecting? It's very theoretical. It's not concrete.

And so Jesus gives us two examples to try to make it real, to put flesh on the bones. The first is, he says, which one of you who goes to build the tower doesn't first make sure you have enough money to build it? That's basically what he says. So what does the tower teach us? Well, before we come to the tower, let's also look at the war. Which one of you would build the tower or try to build the tower and not have the means to finish it? And then he says, what king would go into battle if he hadn't determined ahead of time whether he could win? Because who wants to go into battle they know they're going to lose? Or go into a battle that they hope they'll win? So here's the question to you. A concrete question. How many things in your life have you endeavored to do that you haven't prepared to finish? How often do you set out to do something with no plan,

for making sure it gets done another way of asking that question is when you fail how often is your failure a result of not counting the cost beforehand now counting the cost it depends on how you're right you're laughing at him kim i can see it i know we get it yep you can tell her how she's failed later john i think a lot of wives are laughing at their husbands going yeah he's ambitious and yep not particularly good at finishing things that's that's me So counting the cost. Some of you like to count the cost. We could go through. Kim likes to count the cost. She's all about counting the cost. You're kind of pessimistic too, aren't you? Kind of goes along with people who like to count the cost. They always know when it's not going to work. They're always happy to tell you it's not going to work. And how stupid you are for thinking it's going to work. Kim's not the only one. But counting the cost, some of us make it, it's like it becomes the end. The goal is to count the cost. But really when we count the cost, what we're really trying to do is say, it can't be done.

And it can't be done, and it can't be done. And that's always the result of counting the cost is, and it can't be done. You can't build the tower because you don't ever know what will happen. You can't do this because there's this danger out there. But every one of us counts the cost and makes decisions based on it. Some of us do a better job of it than others. When I was reading Matthew Henney's commentary on this, he almost laughs about building a house. And he just goes, Yeah, get the cost and then just plan on it costing way more than that. But go ahead and build. Because he just knows. Some of you guys really like to count the cost and you really get really specific and you don't like to round up to, you know, $100 or whatever. And it's all specific. I can do this for this amount of money or I can do that in this amount of time. It never works. And if you build things for a living, you know, do your math. Be generous in your math. Round up, you know.

$383 is really $400. And you just kind of round up all the way. And then when you get that number at the end, you multiply it by 10 if you're conservative, but 15 if you're realistic. And that's the number you should plan on spending. And if you work hard through the whole process, you might make that number. You should make that number. That's what it means to count the cost. It's to know what things actually are going to require. And you don't have to be poor to count the cost of a building project. Wealthy people count the cost of a building project. It's not because they don't have the money to finish it. It's because they don't want to spend any more money than they have to. And so the goal here is that we would actually know accurately what the cost is. That's the goal. The goal is not, do I have enough money to push this thing through? You might. That doesn't mean that's what you should do. You know what happens to rich people who manage money that way? Just throw money at problems until they go away. They stop being rich people.

They lose all their money because they didn't count the cost of what was in the future, what would maintenance look like, what phase two looked like. They didn't count the cost. They didn't vision board or whatever. And so we're to count the cost beforehand. Not let's get into it and then we'll figure out how much it costs. It can't be that way. You have to count the cost beforehand, before you build the tower, because what happens, what does Jesus tell you? Just think for a minute that you want to buy a new house, Put an addition on your house, whatever it is. What is one of the most common motivators of people wanting to live in bigger, nicer houses? What other people think? Oh, you live in the new subdivision. Oh, you got the full basement. Oh, you got the fancy. You got the nice. We're all aware of it, okay? Be honest. We're all aware of it. So what happens when people move into those houses, but they don't count the cost? They don't have furniture.

Some of you know I used to climb trees for a living when I lived up in Chicagoland. And so I had the privilege of looking in people's second-story windows sometimes. And it was in Naperville, Illinois. So if you know where Naperville is at, it's super. It's like it would put Carmel to shame in terms of wealth. Fifteen years ago, a quarter-acre piece of dirt in a subdivision was a quarter of a million dollars. And that wasn't the house. That was just the dirt. And that was 15 years ago. So things were expensive, and people wanted to live there. I mean, half a million dollar house, just common. Just that's what houses cost there. And so you'd go in these houses, and they'd have their nice cars, and they'd have their beautiful houses. But if you ever saw in the windows, it literally was empty. Why were their houses empty? Who wants to live in a big empty house? Nobody. So why did they live in a big empty house? Because they didn't count the cost. They can't afford to furnish it. They can't afford to heat it.

And then you know what happens in the end? Once they don't have couches, they get foreclosed on. Those houses go back up for sale. Why? Because they didn't count the cost. That's just one example. Houses. What about marriages? How often do people end up divorced? Because they didn't count the cost ahead of time. They didn't pay attention to what it was going to take. Or what the person they were marrying was actually like. You want to make somebody upset? I have the responsibility of upsetting you guys sometimes. And especially single people. You guys always get so offended. Because I ask questions about the person you're dating. And I usually just ask a really simple question. He's so great. She's so great. And all the rest. And I say, okay, so what is her sin? That's what I want to know. Do you know, sir, what her sin is? No. No, she's just great. She doesn't have any. That's what you think. Well, you're wrong.

What can I say? You're wrong. She's a wicked, terrible, awful sinner. She might be the kind of woman who throws things at you. And it would do you well to know that ahead of time, to know what you're getting into. One of the other things I'll ask is, what have you guys been fighting about? We don't fight. There's nothing more indicative of a bad relationship than ones where they don't fight. People who fight can repent. People who don't fight have no investment in the relationship. Because when you put two sinners together and you make them live together and stay together and smell each other's bad breath and sleep in the same bed and all of that, you know what they do? They fight. Or argue. Or disagree. Or whatever the word is that you use for sinning against one another. Okay? Yes. Yeah. When you have seasons of disunity in your marriage. Yeah. Yeah, right. So, what's happening?

What happens when that marriage is going, going, going and it hits the rocks? I have, from my own experience, I know that when you talk to people who are on the other side of those sorts of things, they'll tell you that they knew. They knew ahead of time. And they didn't like that the people who loved them on the front side were cautioning them. And what were the people who were cautioning doing except telling them, you should count the cost of this. You can't get into this and then figure it out later. You need to know to the best of your ability what you're getting into. And even the ones who do that with marriage still have to work to get their sea legs underneath them and have a marriage that honors them. And without counting the cost beforehand, it's much, much more difficult. So for not counting the cost in marriage, you end up with divorce. Not counting the cost with a house, you end up with foreclosure. Not counting the cost with your status of living, you end up with bankruptcy.

Lost jobs, broken relationships, all kinds of stuff. That's all the fruit of not counting the cost. So what happens when someone doesn't count the cost? And then life gets up on the rocks. What we want to say is, oh, we come and we put our arms around them and we care for them and we help them and we love them and we love them back to life and all of that. But what does Jesus say happens? The people look and they ridicule them saying, This man began to build and was unable to finish. That's not a very sweet thing to say, is it? And yet, what do you think when you see people doing foolishness? You know, before it's all gone to seed, when you see them doing something stupid, careless, what do you say? You say, that's not going to work. And then when it doesn't work, what do you say? What's the one thing you can't say when it doesn't work?

That's the one thing you can't say. You can never tell them I told you so. Why not? Can you not say, I loved you, I love you, and this is what I told you I was afraid would happen. And that's not my goodbye, and you're on your own now, and I hope it's the most miserable, awful thing that you ever go through. That's not what has to follow, I told you so. But I told you so. You remember at the beginning I said, have you ever had those thoughts that before they're even done you say, I can't say that? I told you so is one of those things. When you saw it ahead of time, and then one year, two years, five years, ten years, whatever, you go, that's it. Is it not possible to come alongside them and say, brother, I love you, and I'm here for you. And you're not alone in bearing this burden. This is what I was talking to you about. This is what I didn't want to happen. And I know that this isn't what you wanted to happen either. But it is what's happened. Because you didn't count the cost ahead of time.

So we all understand it when we talk about marriage. We all understand it when we talk about finances. These guys would have understood it when Jesus was talking about the tower and he would have understood it when they were talking about the kings going to war. It all makes sense. Now, does it make sense to speak to people about being Jesus' disciple in this way? That when they're on the front side, you say to them, you had better count the cost because it's not an easy thing to follow Jesus Christ. And I'm not here to lie to you about it. I'm not here to tell you that He's going to fix all of the stuff in your life. I'm here to tell you that He came to save you from your sins. And that's what you need. Because there's no hope apart from that for you. But I don't intend to lie to you and tell you that your life's going to be easier. I can tell you your life will be more joyful, but not because your life's easier. Joy does not run in parallel with ease. Joy often runs in contradiction to ease. When life's hardest,

That's when you'll see joy in Christians. So we need to see what Jesus says here. This man, you know, with regard to someone's faith, their soul, he began to build but was unable to finish. Paul describes this in another place as saying he's made shipwreck of his faith. Very scary. It's not what we want for anyone. Certainly not for ourselves, our spouses, our children, our co-workers, or the people that we love. We don't want to see this happen. And so what's our place? Our place is to tell them the truth, to call out to them and say, being a Christian is not easy. You guys remember that video that we made? It's actually releasing tomorrow. We're getting a new website tomorrow. It's going to be awesome. So the whole theme of that video was to say, listen, you want to know what Clear Note Church is about? Here's what it is in four minutes. We understand that Christianity and faith in Jesus Christ, this side of glory, is a fight.

And we're here to help you fight the fight. We're not here to lie to you and tell you that you aren't going to fight. Because you know what happens to people in battle who don't fight? They get killed. That's what happens to them. And that's not what we want to see happen. That's not what I want to see happen. Not to myself, not to you, and not to the people that we love and care about. Now I want you to realize how difficult, how far afield, you know what I'm saying? We're all sitting here going, okay, yeah, okay, I get that. Let's fight. I want to read to you just a little excerpt about Speaking the truth or... Well, let me ask you this. Have you guys heard of microaggressions? Do you know what a microaggression is? You guys don't know what microaggressions are? Okay. It's when you say something that was probably unintentional but offends somebody else. Okay? And so I want to read to you an excerpt from the Atlantic Monthly. This is a journal. And it's talking about the climate in universities today. Okay?

It says, this new climate is slowly being institutionalized and is affecting what can be said in the classroom. Remember, I can't say that. It's affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion. During the 2014-15 school year, for instance, the deans and department chairs of the 10 University of California system schools were presented by administrators at faculty leader training sessions with examples of microaggressions. Now, you'd expect something that's a microaggression to be offensive, right? Here are some examples. The list of offensive statements included, quote, America is the land of opportunity. And, quote, I believe the most qualified person should get the job. End quote. These are offensive statements. Can't say that to college students. And if you were to go on and read the article, it talks about the psyche of young Americans and how they need safe places and Play-Doh and...

padded rooms, because they're so fragile. What's that? Puppies. Now, am I joking? Am I joking about puppies or Play-Dohs or padded rooms? I'm not. I'm not. I'm not recalling right now the mass shooting where all of the students just went, and this is what they had for the kids. Puppies and Play-Doh and padded rooms. The dental school at IUPUI has puppies. So I'm not lying to you. This is where we're at. So for this sermon to be any good for you or anyone else, you have to realize that what I've said up until I started talking about microaggressions, how unpalatable that is to our society. You cannot handle it. You can't say the things that I'm saying to people without them just being completely, just bowled over. And I'm doing, if you know me, I'm doing my best to not be demonstrative or nasty. Over the top. But these things, whether you're my size or a third of my size, if you speak the truth of God, it will be completely overwhelming to people. They don't have a grid to process it. They don't know what to do with it. They're just drowning. And they can't swim. And yet all of these people who can't swim want to make resolutions.

want their lives to get better, want things to improve. And that's only natural that they would. Who wants to live? I'll sign you up for another year of difficulty and misery. More commonly, I hear people say, this was the hardest year of my life, and I hope I never have another year like this again. That's what I had a friend say to me recently. But no idea how to get better. What makes it better? The things that make for peace. I don't know. And it's our place to show them, to tell them, and to show them. And if you want to glorify God, you have to learn to speak to a culture of microaggressions, the truth of God. And you have to realize it's going to create conflict. And if you're unwilling to do it, not unable, you're not unable, if you're unwilling to do it, Jesus says, you can't be my disciple. So if we're going to make resolutions, if we're going to endeavor to see our lives changed and improved,

Those changes and those improvements ought to be for the glory of God. And they ought not to be hidden under a basket. What's the point of salt once it's lost its saltiness? This is how Jesus ends our text. What's the point of salt? It doesn't flavor food. It doesn't preserve anything. It doesn't even work to decompose the manure. Just throw it out. And what can be done with salt that's lost its savor? Nothing. Nothing. It's useless. And that's what it means to not be Jesus' disciple. It means to be useless. To be of no more value than to be thrown out on the ground and trampled under the foot of men. Well, that's not my desire for any one of us. I don't want to see any of us become useless in the kingdom of God. So how do you become useful in the kingdom of God? You endeavor to become more like Jesus Christ. To love his word more. You want to lose weight? Fine. Go lose weight. Fine.

You save money, good. That's good, too. But when you step out of measuring your life in one-year increments, in terms of successes and failures, and you back up, and we start looking at a trajectory instead of a one-year-at-a-time snapshot, what's the trajectory? What's going on? Is it up? And by up, I mean more towards Jesus Christ, more towards his holiness, more towards obedience, more towards love of him, or is it down? More towards love of the world, conformity to the world, agreement with the world. What is it? It would do us good not simply to think of our lives in terms of one-year increments, but to step back a little bit and say, okay, three years. Okay, five years. Okay, ten. Okay, twenty. And you'll know better than anyone else what the honest trajectory looks like. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. You can impress me. I can impress you. Try to. We all want to believe good things about each other. What's your trajectory?

You say, it's bad. And I say, well, it's hopeless. It's not hopeless. It's not hopeless. If you can see that the trajectory is not good, and you can get your brain wrapped around the idea that that means that you might not be a disciple of Jesus Christ, then I say to you, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Turn. Turn. Away from your sin and back to Jesus Christ. And endeavor to pursue holiness and righteousness. Endeavor to become his disciple more and more. You say, okay, well Dave, can I say that I think my trajectory is up? That I'm actually getting better? You can. Because it gives glory to God and the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. You should be able to say that. So is your work done? No. Your work's not done. Your work is to continue. To press on and to turn the trajectory up.

Don't worry, you'll never get to the top. Not before you die. You don't have to worry about getting there ahead of everybody else. You won't. Your job is to press on and to pursue holiness more. To identify your crosses and to bear them. To love your neighbors with God's truth. To love your wives and your husbands and your children and your parents with the truth of God's word. There's work to do. That's what 2018 and 2019 and 2020 and on should be about. building God's kingdom in our own hearts, in our own families, in our communities, in our workplaces. That's what we should be about. And it's the best work you'll ever do. It's terrifying. If you're not in the habit of talking to people about spiritual things, it's really scary. Because you don't know what they're going to say. They're unpredictable. But when you do it, it's really exciting. And sometimes they are angry, but you do realize that's one of the potential outcomes, is they could get angry. And that's okay.

It's been my experience that when I've had hard things said to me, that the people who said those hard things to me, even though I gnashed my teeth at them at the time, I knew they loved me or I knew they wouldn't have said it. They loved me enough to tell me, Dave, that is not good. It does not honor Jesus Christ. And it's bad for your soul. And you need to stop. And I didn't immediately think that. But by God's grace, I did come to believe that. And so you have to trust God to use you. And if you look for immediate fruit and immediate results, you're going to be disappointed just like going out to your garden on May 1st looking for tomatoes. It's just they're not there yet. So plant in faith, pursue holiness and righteousness, and trust God to bear the fruit in the time that he chooses to. That's your work. That's what you should resolve to do this year. Let's pray.