Turn with me to Luke chapter 14. Our Lord has departed from the chief Pharisee's house and we're told in verse 25 that there went great multitudes with him and he turned and said unto them, now Something in these great multitudes that went after our Lord, it tells us something about man. It tells us that man is very willing to adopt religion. It tells us that they're very much willing to be religious. Man doesn't have a problem with religion. Man is very religious. But we know from the scriptures that when man would go after our Lord, when they would follow him, our Lord didn't just receive them and was happy to have great numbers of people following him. In fact, it says early in his ministry in John chapter 2 that our Lord did not commit himself to men. He didn't commit himself to them because he knew all men. and needed not that any man should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. So our Lord is not interested in a great following of people. That's not what he was after here. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to redeem the lost sheep given to him by the Father before the foundation of the world. He came to lay down his life as their surety. That's why he came. Now, many were delighting in Christ. And you can understand why. These people oftentimes had been shamed and beaten down by the self-righteous Pharisees. And our Lord was very good at exposing their hypocrisy, at undressing their hypocrisies. And so many were ready to follow him. Many were ready to become part of this movement and believing that he was the Christ. But they did so without a heart. They did so in a very carnal manner. They were coming with their works and their strength and their abilities and their ideas. And the point is that they did not have the Spirit of God. They were not coming in a true spirit, in a right heart. They were coming in the flesh. And so the point is that even today, With the giving of the Spirit, men can still attach themselves to religion and be very religious and put on a form and a show of hypocrisy and religion, all while doing so in the flesh and not having the Spirit of God. Now, these remaining verses here in this chapter They are not a departure from the lesson that our Lord is teaching His people. It's not a departure from the parables that He had just spoken, those three parables that He had just spoken to in the Pharisees' house. Our Lord still bids the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. He still bids them to come to Him. And so these words that he says, they are a continuation of grace. They are to minister grace to the hearers, and it's showing us our need of the grace of God. Again, in fact, to men in religion, when man in religion gets to a point where he no longer needs the grace of God because he's fixed himself by his doing, he's fixed himself by his religion, he's fixed himself by his keeping of the law or whatever it is that he's trusting in, that man is showing he's spiritually dead. He doesn't have the spirit. He's not heard the voice of Christ. He's not believed Christ. He's not submitted to Christ. He's not come under the yoke of Christ. And so we're either saved by grace. I need to make this point. We're either saved by grace or we're saved by works. And it's not a combination of the two. Paul said we're either saved by grace, therefore it's no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. And if it be of works, then it's no more grace, otherwise work is no more work. It's one or the other. Only one is true. Not both. And so the true disciple of Christ, what our Lord is teaching us here, is not to be religious people. not to get religion and to get a little religion and teach us religion and how to be more moral and better citizens in the world and get worldly blessings. The true disciple is saved by the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that disciple is made by God, made to lie down in green pastures. He's made by God to forsake his own righteousness for the righteousness of Christ. The Lord's going to have us, and we might fight and resist and go a long time in religion, but if the Lord be pleased to deliver us from death, he's going to bring us out of that vain false confidence and hope that we have in our doing that we might fall upon Christ and beg him for grace and mercy and to save us. So the disciple of Christ is stripped of of a vain self-righteousness, of a hope and confidence in the flesh that we have by nature. Again, we're religious by nature, and the Lord's gonna break us of that vain confidence, and he's gonna break us of self-righteousness, and trusting our works, and bring us to submit to Christ, to beg him for mercy, to cry out to him to save us. And so the hope that we have to stand before God is not in my doing, it's not in my repenting, it's not in my changed lifestyle and commitment to new works. My hope is fixed entirely in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his righteousness. I'm still disgusted by what I see in myself, in my heart, in my flesh, in my mind. I still see the plague of sin there, but I believe Christ. I trust Christ. I have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to save me according to his promise and his blood and what he's done to wash me of my sins, to put them away forever. and to present me faultless before the throne of God, having neither spot, wrinkle, nor blemish, because of him, because of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so God puts all his disciples in subjection to the Son. He is both Lord and Christ. He is the Savior, and all men shall bow to Christ on the day of judgment. We know that. Every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord. But in grace and mercy, the Lord in the day of grace, here and now, causes his people to submit to Christ now, to cry out to him for mercy. Save me, Lord. Otherwise, I'm a dead man. Don't wait till that day of judgment for me to hear and understand. Lord, reveal yourself to me today. Today, I need your salvation. Today, I need your grace. And this is one of the spiritual blessings that's given to us now in the new birth in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So let's read verses 25 again and down through verse 27. And there went great multitudes with him, and he turned and said unto them, if any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters. Yea, and his own life also. And men probably don't notice that too much. He cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now, I just want to make first two points on these verses. We're going to continue in the text, but I want to look at these two verses, making two points here that will help us with the right understanding of what our Lord is saying. First of all, we need to go back to the garden. The garden. The Lord told Adam, Adam, do not eat the fruit of that tree in the midst of the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat it. And it doesn't matter if it was an apple, a tomato. It doesn't matter if it was a mango, or a banana, or a coconut, or a pomegranate. It doesn't matter what it was. The point is, God said, don't eat of the fruit of that tree. It symbolized God's authority, his rule, his law. Don't do it, Adam. And the day you eat of that, you shall surely die. And the scriptures tell us. Eve was beguiled, she was deceived, and she ate that fruit. But the scriptures say Adam was not deceived. Adam understood what had just happened. He was not deceived. 1 Timothy 2.14, Adam was not deceived. Adam's heart being knit with Eve's, he loved her. And so he ate of that fruit, knowing what he was doing, rebelling and casting off the authority and commandment of God. He was rebelling against the commandment of God, he rebelled and joined her in death. And so death entered the world through sin and death came upon all men because all were in Adam and all sinned. When Adam corrupted, when he died spiritually, all his seed in him died spiritually and became corrupt. That's why we all come forth from the womb speaking lies, and sin, and in darkness, and having no understanding of the true and living God. And so Adam cast off the rule and the authority of God, right? And this is important to what our Lord is saying here in speaking to his people, because they're still coming in a spirit of rebellion. What Adam destroyed, The Son of God came to reconcile and to restore, because Adam in all his posterity cannot fix what we have broken and destroyed. And so the Son of God Because you should ask, why did the Son of God take upon Him flesh? If I can save myself, if I can do it and fix it, why did the Son of God come? Is He just some signpost, some good guy that shows me what goodness looks like? Or is He, as the scriptures call Him, the Savior, the Lord, the Christ, the one in whom I have all my life, if I'm to have life, it's by Him. And so he came. Now, I say all this because, like Adam, men are still rejecting the rule and authority of God. We're still fixers. We're still self-righteous Pharisees by nature. We still think we can do it. I can fix this. I can make this right. I don't know if Adam was thinking, I'll figure this out. I'm going to go with Eve, and then we'll figure this thing out. I don't know what he was thinking, but I do know one thing. Men today think they can fix it. under a spirit of deceit. They're beguiled now. Man is ignorant of the truth and walks in darkness and rejects the authority and rule of God. And that's manifest in our attempts to fix it by the law. It's manifested in our attempts to fix things by religion. and the practice of works religion by our flesh. And so in doing that, all we're doing is continuing the destruction. All we're doing is continuing in sin and in darkness, thinking that we can fix it, because it's a rejection of Christ. Pharisees were very good at religion. They were very good at fulfilling the form of religion, but they stumbled over Christ and took that stone that God chose and put there and tried to move it out of the way so that they wouldn't stumble over him anymore. They rejected Christ against themselves. And so the scriptures say they being ignorant, and all who, like the Pharisees, reject Christ and don't trust Christ and try to fix it by the law and not Christ. They being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. And just because we call ourselves Christians doesn't mean that we're any different. Continuing in the flesh and continuing in the law and continuing to try to fix it, even though I slapped the label of Christian on it and that I believe in Jesus, that doesn't make it any better, any different from the rest of the false religions and idolatry in the world. If you would have the blessings of God in life and salvation, then seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all the blessings you're looking for, all the blessings of life that you're seeking and trying to get by your works under the law, you will receive happily to whatever God is pleased to give you, thankfully and joyfully in Christ. Because if you have Christ, if you have the Son, you have all, all by Him, in and by Him. Now the second thing that we see in this is that man naturally puts the flesh before grace. That's what he's speaking of here. He's putting flesh between him and grace, and the word of grace preached in Christ. If any man, Christ said, come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And so man lets the flesh right, whether it's the cares and worries of this world and what he wants to get in this world, whether he fears persecution, whether he could just care less, right, and he loves his religion, loves the praise of man or loves his sin and loves the flesh and everything that he's doing, he's letting those things come between him and this word of grace revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn't say he's letting it come between him and his good works, because that's how the natural man hears this. Oh, don't let the family get in the way of my good works. No, no, no. Don't let the flesh, whether it's the family or yourselves, because that's where the big problem is. Ourselves come between us and the grace I need in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, save me from myself. Save me from my corruption. And so the point is, what the Lord is saying is, we cannot fix ourselves by the flesh. And just putting on a form of religion, even with the name of Jesus and following Jesus like the multitudes were here, is not going to fix it. It's not going to change a thing. So man spends a lot of time fixing stuff in the name of being godly and trying to do what is right, all the while he misses Christ. He's just off target, he's not in aim, he's missing Christ. And what our Lord is teaching us is that man is not submitting to Christ. He's not coming to God through Christ. Another way that our Lord said this is over in Mark chapter 8, in verse 34 through 36. He said, it says, when he had called the people unto him, with his disciples also, and you can picture this great multitude following him, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it." If you're trying to save yourselves, fixing yourselves with religion, you're going to lose your life. You're not going to find that which you seek. But whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? There's a great many blessings we can get for ourselves in being good and being wise and doing things a certain way. But what does it profit you if all you have is carnal earthly blessings and lose your soul for all eternity? We need the grace of God in Christ And so man is willing to strive for blessings and riches of this world and various things and lose his soul. And so Christ says, take up the cross. And what that speaks of is the hope of the believer. It's the hope we have in Christ. That cross that he's saying is my hope is that I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live, I live by the faith, the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. There's my hope. There's my salvation. That's the cross that we're taking up is dying to self, dying to our works, dying to the law. We're dead to these things in Christ and live by the life and faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We take up our cross through faith in Christ, trusting him, abandoning all hope of my own righteousness, that I might have the righteousness of Christ alone to stand before God. Not being found in my own righteousness, which is of the law, Paul said, but the righteousness which is of God by the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, so this is speaking to our submission to Christ, believing Christ, trusting him to save us to the uttermost. He said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." The Pharisee has no rest. The Judaizer that is trying to conform you to the Jews under the law, they have no rest because they're wickedly trying to rebuild and fix by the flesh what man destroyed. And there's no rest in that. You're never going to do enough. You're never going to please God. You're never going to satisfy God. And you're going to be troubled and afraid and in fear and in constant doubts and worries. And everything's just going to fall apart in your hands as you're trying to fix it. But Christ says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And so Christ is saying, I'm not going to have you do it. I'm not going to have you fix it. But Christ works salvation in his people by a new birth. You must be born again. The old man keeps thinking, I can fix it. I can make this right. I can do this by the law. I can make it all right with my religion. And Christ is saying, no, you can't. No, you can't. Trust me. I make new creatures, and then all things are possible. All things are new in Christ. Now, our Lord gives us an example here of building a tower in verse 28. Verse 28 through 30. Luke 14, For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest, happily, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Now, as I recall, In Genesis, there were men of Babylon. who worked and labored hard, baking bricks, and out of their works, out of their doing, they built a tower to give them godliness, to bring them to heaven. It's a picture of what man does by the works of the law. He's striving and laboring and spending and giving and doing to make himself righteous, to make himself godly, to make himself acceptable with God, and to reach to heaven. But we're told that they had not sufficient to finish it. Why not? Because God opposed it. God himself came down and destroyed it. He gave them confusion of tongue. And that is man, right? Walking in darkness and in confusion, bouncing off of walls, never coming to a knowledge of the truth, never understanding, never at peace, never resting in the rest of God, which is Christ. Any foundation that we would lay and build upon, if it's a foundation on my strength, on my flesh, on my wisdom, on my dedication, on my effort in trying to do it, is bound to fail. It's going to fail. If God before you, it's a gracious thing if it fails. Honestly, it's good that we're brought to the end of ourselves. That's a good thing, because that's usually the thing that he does to open our ear and say, all right, Lord, I give up. I need your grace. I need you to do it, Lord, because I can't do it. But as long as you've got strength, you're just going to keep on running and doing it. But if Christ is your foundation, if God be merciful to you, if Christ is your foundation, well, when the rain descends and the floods come, and the wind blows against that house, which is formed of the faith of Christ alone, that house will not fall. And the reason why it will not fall is because it is founded on the rock, which is Christ. Not in name only, but in spirit and in power. In truth here, that rock is Christ established in the covenant of grace by the blood of Jesus Christ, not my work, not my fickle works, not my failings, not my half works and half good and half bad and mostly bad. It's not that. It's all founded on Christ, all founded on him. It's a perfect righteousness that shall not fail. Because like Christ said, if you come up short, and you and I will in our own works, but if you trust Christ, there's no coming up short. There's no failure. It will not fall apart. It'll be blessed because it's of Christ. Then our Lord gives a second example in verse 31 through 33. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand. Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an embassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath. forsaking all that we have. If he do not that, then he cannot be my disciple. And what he's saying is that in laboring under the law, in laboring to work a righteousness for ourselves, we are warring against God. We're not hearing God. We're still resisting Christ. Even if you say I'm a Christian, so long as you're striving and laboring to save yourselves, And to make this thing certain for you by your works, you're not submitting to Christ. You're not hearing the voice of Christ. And the truth is, he is the king. He is the king that is coming, that is coming with a greater army than we have. Though he's gone on a far journey since his resurrection, he is ascended up to heaven and seated on the right hand of the throne of God, ruling and reigning. And he says, I'm coming again. And when I come, it will not be with sin. That is, I will not come to bear sin and put it away again. I'm coming with a sword. And the door will close, the day of grace will be over, and all who are Christ's shall forever be with Him, and He'll punish those that do not believe Him and trust Him. And so our works to establish our own righteousness, he calls them wicked works. It's a warfare against the king that we cannot defeat. We cannot oppose his word. You're not going to outdo all those that have come before you trying to do it by the law. God has already given his word and testimony of what we are to do, saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him come to me in Christ. If you would have peace with God, if you would find rest for your souls, come in Christ. Now, Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 5. I want to show you this is a little lengthy. We're going to start in verse 14 with minimal comment here, but verse 14 and go down to the end of the chapter, verse 21. 2 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 14. Now, this is pointing us all to Christ. Forsake all that you have and fly to Christ. Look to Him in faith. Cry out to Him for grace and mercy. 4, verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge. Right? We're preaching Christ to you, being constrained of His love, because we thus judge that if one died for all, well, then all were dead. There's not a single man or woman on the earth that can save themselves. Not going to happen. You cannot do it by the works of the law. And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves. Just like what our Lord is saying here, forsake your father, your mother, your brothers, sisters, wives, children, and your own selves also. Forsake them all. Don't live unto yourselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again. It's a life of faith, not a bondage of fear. Wherefore, Henceforth know we no man after the flesh. And I love this verse here. No man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. And what Paul is saying is, yeah, we labored in Christ for a time in the flesh. We thought we were Christians, and we thought that we understood and were doing things in religious ways. And we knew him, though, but it was only after the flesh. But when grace has come, when he gives that spirit and a hearing ear, he makes you new creatures so that everything you were trusting in, by the flesh, and thinking, I got this now. I think I figured it out. And I know the Lord, and I'm a Christian now. You realize that was all flesh. And he makes you a new creature by the giving of a spirit and the hearing of his word of faith. And you believe. And we don't know him anymore after the flesh, because the spirits come and all things are now new. And all those childish things, those elements of the world and the law and all that plaguing religion that I was doing is put away. like a grown man puts away his childish toys and is done with them. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. That's what we must all be in Christ, a new creature. And we don't do that for ourselves. But when Christ comes, we are made new creatures. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. And in Christ Jesus, brethren, all things are possible. Because now it's not your flesh and not depending on your flesh, because anything that depends on me, I guarantee I always mess it up. There's always something I mess up about. But in Christ, all things are new. And His grace is able to overcome and do things I never even thought possible and could not see or understand. All things have become new. And all things, verse 18, are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. And hath, right? These are all past tense things that are done. Not for you to do, are done. And hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. That is to tell sinners, not what you need to do, not what you need to stop, but not what you need to fix. That's a bondage, a yoke, that neither you nor our fathers could bear. Peter said, but to tell you of what Christ has done, what the Father has done for his child by the Lord Jesus Christ, the good news, the mystery of God revealed. All men understand what they got to do, and it's darkness and confusion. But until God reveals it, we don't know and understand, until he gives a spirit, then we understand what God has done by the Lord Jesus Christ. Tell sinners what he's done, to wit, to know that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us, the church, the word of reconciliation. Now then, We're preaching peace through Christ. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, not ambassadors of Moses, not ambassadors of the law, not ambassadors of religion, not ambassadors of form and good works and morality and things like that. We're ambassadors of Christ, knowing that he is going to work in you everything you need, so confident in Christ that we preach him. and bring you to Him. That's what we're doing. We're so confident in Him as ambassadors for Christ, as though God to beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God in Him, in Him. For God hath made Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We don't fix ourselves. Christ saves, redeems his people. And this is what our Lord is talking about to these people who are still coming in their religion under a yoke of bondage. And he's saying, unless you submit to me, unless you come to me, unless you die to self with me on that cross, unless Christ does it, you cannot be saved. You cannot be saved. It's a new creation. All the old ways of religion are gone. They're put away. They cannot save. Now, let's look at the last two verses back in our text here, because I think these tie it together. This ties everything I was saying together here. Our Lord says, salt is good, but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, Nor yet for the dunghill, but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, again, you that have the spirit, you hear this. That's what we need. Let him hear. All right, if you can hear, because this is going to be a word of grace and faith. Brethren, we are the salt of the earth, the church, the people who preach and minister Christ. This is why we're here in the world. You are the salt of the earth, Christ says. Well, the benefit of salt is what? It adds savor to the food, and it preserves that food. That's what salt does. It adds a savor to that food. It is delicious and blessed. Ever since I started using salt, it's amazing how good food is. It's the savor of it. Well, the savor and the preserving power is Christ. Understand that. The savor of the salt is Christ. You're the salt. Christ is the savor. He's the preserving power and grace. If all you're preaching, right? And he's saying this to me, and all that would minister Christ. If all our preaching and focus is just on doctrine, and practice, and works, and getting blessings for ourselves carnally, and doing these things that have not a savor of Christ in them, right, by turning men to the flesh, If that's what we do, then you are a salt that has lost its savor. There's no savor to your salt. If all you are is dead works religion, and practice, and form, and the law, and the flesh, it lacks the savor of Christ. There's nothing to it. It's no good to anyone. It doesn't benefit at all. It's not preserving anyone. It's not saving them from death. It's not giving them eternal life. They're dead. And you're dead that are preaching it. You've lost your saver. And what he's saying is, wherewith shall it be seasoned? In other words, there's not another seasoning out there. There's no other savior. This is the name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Savior of the soul. And there's not another, not another, all right? All your teaching and exhorting to good works and railing against sin will fail miserably because it's rejecting Christ. It's despising Christ. It's stumbling over the stumbling stone and saying, get that out of here. I want to get back to my dead works religion. And I just want to do it my way. And that one has no ear for Christ, has no heart for Christ. So meaning no ear to hear him and no voice to preach him. It just lacks a savor of Christ. And our Lord says, you're fit for nothing. You're not fit for the land. You're not even fit for the dunghill. Because what happens when you put salt on your garden or in your compost pile? What happens? Nothing grows. Salt kills. In the Northeast, we see a lot. When they salt the roads about three feet in, where the salt goes, what happens? All that green grass is dead and doesn't grow. That's what salt does. It gives no fruit. There's nothing of fruit that comes when that salt is laid on the land. And you don't put it in your compost, because it's just going to kill everything. There's no fruit, no fruit apart from Christ. And that's what the Lord's saying. You think your religion's helping people, and all it's doing is killing. It's just destroying the people because there's no fruitfulness. Without Christ, there's no spiritual fruit, nothing of eternal value. Men cast it out and trample it underfoot, like on a path where you don't want anything to grow. And that's what the Lord says, I'll cast you out of the outer darkness. You'll have no part in the kingdom. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear that. And what we hear, you that hear, is the voice of Christ, saying, I need Christ. Yes, Lord, save me. Deliver me from these false dead illusions of death and works, thinking that I'm saving myself and I'm missing you. Have mercy on me, Lord. That's what the child of God hears, Lord save me. So to be clear, once more, we cannot save ourselves with our works. Many people read this passage and think, oh, the Lord's calling me to rededicate my life. Oh, the Lord's calling me to get more focused. Oh, the Lord's calling me to stop this sin over here and to start doing this more consistently and to get a better walk with God. Well, the rich young ruler had better works than we all do. And he, as far as we know, died in his sin and went to hell. for all eternity. None of the works don't deliver us from hell. Our Lord is not telling us, try harder, sin less. He's declaring, you need grace. You need a complete work of grace. Come to me. Die with Christ. Die to yourself. and come to Christ, live with Christ. We need grace. And that's what he's saying. We may know lots of doctrine. We may know lots of forms and creeds and catechisms and Bible verses and have many works. And I put to practice a great many things. But man can believe a lot of truthful things and do a lot of wonderful works on the outside and still miss Christ. And so the Lord is saying, Surrender all to me. Surrender everything to Christ. Trust Him. Cry out to Him to do it. And He'll show you. He'll give you the ear. He'll make it known what's being said. He does it. It pleases Him to glorify the Son in the hearts of His people. So forsake your own righteousness for the righteousness of Christ and you have everlasting life. And He'll grow you in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.