“25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’”
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up every-
thing he has cannot be my disciple.”
34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”’”
We’re officially in 2026. Some of us are four days into our New Year’s resolutions. “This year now that I’m 50, I’m going to lose my freshman 15.” “This year I’m going write the great American novel.” “I am going to say “yes” to everything that scares me in 2026.” “This year, I’m going to learn to ski.”
Some of those are smart—other’s aren’t. You might have heard of SMART goals; it’s an acronym—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Writing the great American novel is neither sufficiently specific nor measurable. Saying yes to everything in 2026 isn’t properly specific nor necessarily relevant. Losing 15 pounds this year or learning to ski could be all those—if that’s what you want.
Our parables tonight are all about goal setting. Jesus gives us the SMARTest of all goals—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Follow through on smart resolutions. Follow through on your resolution to follow Christ. That’s the claim of this sermon.
We will study this in four points. First: identification. Second: building a tower. Third: going to war. Fourth: fulfilling your purpose. First, in verses 25-27, we consider identification. Second, in verses 28-30, we will see building a tower. Third, in verses 31-33, we will see going to war. Fourth, in verses 34-35, we consider fulfilling your purpose.
We see Jesus press for resolution in our first point: identification. When we find Jesus in Luke 14, he has been talking up the kingdom. He’s just twice described it as a party and healed a man as a sign that the celebration is already beginning; that’s what leads to verse 25, ‘Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said, “if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”’
Jesus cautions those who might be jumping on the bandwagon. He isn’t driving people away; he’s letting them know what’s ahead if they follow. If they want to be part of what Jesus is doing, they will need to identify with him—he who the Pharisees judged for healing that man as a sign of celebration, he whose invitation to the party was regularly mocked. Do you really want to identify with Jesus?
Luke makes clear that Jesus intentionally turned to say this caution to these people. It’s no favor to anyone to trumpet the benefits and conceal the costs. It’s not appreciated in sales, in dating, or in faith. Honesty is always the most productive way forward. Jesus never concealed the costs. He was straightforward about the work involved. Jesus never drove anyone away but neither did he drive anyone into the kingdom. He respects us enough to lay it all out and does us the honor of making us decide for ourselves.
Will you decide to identify with Jesus? Doing so means nothing can come between you and him—that includes the most proper priority of family. That’s what’s going on with this talk of love and hate here. It’s not telling you that the height of spirituality is opposition every natural affection. That needs to be understood especially if you have an austerity streak about you. This is about ordering your loves. As Calvin explains, Jesus “does not indeed enjoin us to lay aside human affections, or forbid us to discharge the duties of relationship, but only desires that all the mutual love which exists among men should be so regulated as to assign the highest rank to piety.” It’s about putting Jesus first—even before family. Did the crowd jumping on the bandwagon want that? Do we want that?
This is Jesus assigning the first commandment to himself, “you shall have no other gods before me.” Requiring such prioritization only makes sense if Jesus thinks he is God. Anyone else making these statements would be narcissistic and manipulative to the core. You need to be savvy about charismatic people in this fallen world. Some know how to boost the benefits and conceal the costs. Some know how to leverage natural affections to use you.
You’d be wise to ask yourself whether you think Jesus is one of them. He is, after all, calling you to prioritize him. If you are really going to put weight on him, why do you think he will hold? That’s a reason to read through the gospels. You learn to trust someone by sufficient exposure to make an assessment. That’s why you don’t go into business with someone you just met. That’s why you don’t entrust your children to strangers.
That’s why Jesus is cautioning the crowd. To me this is a sign of Jesus’ legitimacy. Disingenuous people don’t give such cautions. They don’t risk honesty because it might drive people away.
Jesus’ honesty is encapsulated in verse 27’s, “anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” No listener at this point would have thought in terms of Jesus’ own literal cross on Golgotha because it hadn’t happened yet but they all knew the cross as the Roman’s torture device and most readers of Luke’s gospel already knew something about the crucifixion of Jesus.
The point here is that Jesus isn’t asking his followers to take up anything he wasn’t willing to take up. They take up their cross as he did. That’s not how manipulators operate. You can die for their beliefs, but they won’t die for their beliefs or for you. Read George Orwell’s Animal Farm if you want an example or read Jesus’ words about the religious leaders of his day, “you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.” We need to be shrewd about people making claims on our lives. We need to know the difference between gullibility and faith. That’s part of having relevant spiritual goals. With that caution, let’s turn to the parables in our second point: building a tower.
Jesus cautioned the crowd to not only plan to identify with him but to continue to do so. Resolving to read a book a month in 2026 is admirable, writing it down as a goal makes it more concrete, but it is the reading of twelve books this year that makes it happen. That’s Jesus’ point with this tower. It’s the completion that counts.
This parable is about building a tower and likely very few of us have done that so this seems like a foreign example. It would have highly relevant in Jesus’ mind. He worked for years as a carpenter and farmers needed carpenters to help them build watchtowers in their vineyards. That’s the familiarity behind ‘Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.”’
This wasn’t a grandiose project to Jesus’ listeners. It wasn’t like, “suppose Elon Musk wants to breathe only perfect air in his home and workplace. Given that it will cost $8 billion to build a prototype doesn’t it make sense for him to consider whether that’s worth it?” This tower in the vineyard example is more like, “suppose a mother has three children, their spouses, and twelve grandchildren coming for Christmas; for years they’ve had prime rib at the holidays. Doesn’t it make sense for her to sit down with her husband and consider whether this tradition makes sense for their growing family?” It’s a story about the A of SMART—is this attainable?
Jesus is asking this crowd whether they truly intend to complete their interest in following him all the way to the end. He’s not demanding moral perfection. He’s not asking whether they can keep the law. He’s asking the same question as he did with the parable of the soils. He’s asking them to inspect whether they are rocky soil—all excited but with no root. He’s asking them to inspect whether they are soil with thorns—caring about truth but caring more about something else.
This question of whether you would finish the tower is a call to be honest about what you are after. How many marriages would be better off if both partners were honest with themselves and each other about what they wanted before they got married? How many former business partners would still be friends if both were honest with themselves and each other about what they wanted before and during their partnership? If all this is true on a horizontal dimension, how much more is it true on a vertical dimension—with us and God? That’s Jesus’ point.
As nasty as divorce can be and as sour as a dissolved business partnership can get, these pale in comparison to a relationship with Jesus gone south. Jesus is telling this crowd who wants in to think about that. Perhaps this evening is your call to think about that. Plenty of people are externally still in with Jesus but internally checked out. There are a variety of reasons for it, but the blunt genius of Jesus here is that, as Bock puts it on this verse, “The failure is not God’s, but the disciple’s—because of lack of commitment, resolves, and reflection.”
What is it that has become between you and Jesus? Has God not met your expectations? Were these expectations realistic? Were your expectations proper but not for this life as we studied on Old Years? Are you covering your own shame for some failure by blaming Him? Do you simply want to prioritize something ahead of Him? Have you misunderstood Him?
Like building a watchtower in a vineyard, relationships require work and as many Christians properly stress, faith is a relationship. Work involves assessing and allocating resources. It involves knowing where to say “yes” and where to say “no” and saying it. Jesus is calling for that sort of work in your relationship with him. I wish perseverance in the faith was as simple as just always be sincere, or just surround yourself with the right people, but it’s not as simple as anything that can be started with the word “just.” That’s why this is our twentieth time together in Jesus’ parables correcting our understandings. That’s why he gives us another parable in our third point: going to war.
This is a passage of twos. There were two statements in our first point—one about family, the other about the cross. There are two parables. There will be two options for salt in our next point. Only that last is an either/or statement. The rest show how complicated life is.
This second parable, as we’ve seen often, ups the ante. The last one was familiar to Jesus’ listeners. This next was foreign; “suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.”
Jesus’ listeners might have found themselves in the situation of the first parable; they wouldn’t find themselves becoming kings. Both examples have their place though. We sometimes learn by way of the familiar. A meme about motherhood comes up as you scroll on your phone and it hits you where you are in our being a mother. A friend taking a prescription medication tells you that he’s not sure if it’s worth the side effects. The familiar often hits you where you live. Sometimes, though, we must learn by way of the foreign. Sometimes we can’t bear to see a truth about ourselves and can only being to see it somewhere else first. That was Nathan’s tact with his story to David about sheep.
Any of us can see that a king with far fewer soldiers should try to place nice. We can see that because our egos aren’t involved because we aren’t the king. We have the luxury of reflecting quite easily because we aren’t in the situation. Jesus is urging us listeners to reflect upon our own condition with that same distance. It’s a call for us to inspect and marshal our own resources; that’s verse 33, “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” This is not a call to valiantly and violently throw our ten thousand men into a losing battle. That’s the opposite of this parable. This is a call to inspect ourselves before committing to follow Jesus and to continue to inspect ourselves while following him. As Calvin explains, “This doctrine reproves the rashness of those who foolishly proceed beyond their capacity, or flatter themselves without thinking of bearing the cross.”
This is a splash of cold water on a hot ego that prides itself on spirituality. It’s a caution saying, “before you try to convert all of China perhaps you would be wise to do your devotions daily and better honor your own father and mother.”
It’s a caution to be realistic about what’s going on in you and what’s really yours to offer. It’s a call to be realistic about what’s in your current ability. “Prominence is given in this whole section to the idea of being able,” Snodgrass rightly points out. There’s an awkward pride in us which tries to offer what isn’t in our current ability. It’s like a man giving an offering he can’t afford because he both thinks he ought to and because it makes him feel rich to give big gifts. Jesus is warning us against running beyond our ability. He’s urging us to be realistic about what we have before we decide to give; that’s wisdom financially, relationally, and spiritually. That’s the A of SMART goals—attainable.
Jesus has a final summary caution for us before Luke 14 closes. It’s worth noting that directly after this caution comes the parables on the lost being found—the sheep, the coin, the sons whom we just studied. Jesus is teaching us to be sensible about where we are spiritually—if you are lost, get found; for today if you are considering, consider wisely; that’s this final caution and our final point: fulfilling our purpose.
If you refuse to take Jesus’ warnings to heart, your resolution to follow him will wind up as pointless as an unfinished tower or as frightening as hopeless battle to the death; that’s the transition from those parables verse 34, “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.”
Saltless salt is the equivalent of having a New Year’s resolution to learn how to change your own oil but never getting underneath the car. Thinking that the resolution matters will, after a while, become hypocrisy. It has the right stated goals but no follow through or real intention to do so. At the end of 2026, you are going to toss out that sticky note with that goal undone. That’s what Jesus will do with resolutions to follow him that have no follow through. There’s no use for saltless salt. There’s no use for faithless faith.
So the question to you and I from these parables is whether our commit to follow Jesus is SMART—are we specific, are we willing to measure our faith, is it attainable, is it relevant to us, do we know that the timing will be for the rest of this life? Are we smart about our spiritualty? That’s Jesus’ words at the end of this passage and that the end of this sermon. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Amen.