(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Go back to Luke chapter 14. I'm not going to re-read this. We're going to start re-reading this passage in verse number 25, but right before that, it's important to have all this in context and understanding the point that's being made. Right before where we're going to start reading, Jesus gives the story about the man that made a great supper. And He bade many people, and He said, you know, and all the people that He invited to that supper came up with an excuse. Oh, well, I want to go to your supper, but I want to do this, but I have this. Oh, give me a seat. Oh, just don't worry. You're my friend. I love you, but I can't do it because fill in the blank. Obviously, this is symbolic of the nation of Israel and how, you know, Jesus Christ came on His own, His own received and not. God was preparing a place for them, and they just rejected, oh, no, I've got this going. I've got that going on, but that makes God angry. And we can see that from this parable. We can see that from this story. When people are just putting other things first. Well, yeah, you know, I want to do that, but it doesn't really work out. Well, I want to come to church on Sunday, but I mean, there's a great big football game on. You know, I can't miss it. It's my team. You don't understand. We haven't been in the playoffs in like 30 years. I can't come to church. What are you kidding me? I'll go next week. Yeah, right. We can look at that and I can look at that and just laugh. You fool, because it's not a foolish thing. Some game is taking precedence, but imagine how God actually feels about that. A game, a game. People throwing a stupid ball around and running into an end zone. I made it all the way without someone tackling me to the ground. Who cares? Really, who cares? So many people need to wake up to that. I understand what it's like to get excited about games. I was into all that stuff, but now I can look at it and just go, what a bunch of foolishness. You want to play some games? Great. It's fun. I like playing the games too, but I mean, cheering and rooting and getting all worked up and excited over other people playing a game. And then you let that become your reason to not follow Christ. Do we see Christ saying, no, I'm not going to go and, you know, I can just go and do that tomorrow. I'm going to go heal those people. I'm going to go preach to the poor tomorrow because today there's this great battle going on at the Coliseum. And I want to go check that out. You don't see that happening. But let's look down here in Luke 14, look at verse number 25. Because there's a cost associated with following Christ. There went great multitudes with him and he turned and said unto them. So now look at the context. There's people, a lot of people following Jesus. They're with him. At this time, at this particular moment in his ministry, there's a great amount of people that are kind of following him, want to hear him, want to know what's going on. Listen to what he has to say. So he turns unto the people and it's a great multitude. And there's a lot to be learned just from the way that he's dealing with these people. Because any leader, any teacher that finds themselves with a great multitude of people around them is going to run into the thought that crosses their mind and the appeal to the flesh of maybe allowing themselves to be kind of puffed up. Wow, all these people are following me, you know, and the power and the influence that goes along with that. There's so many different choices that can be made in a situation like that. We could allow greed or temptation of just any kind to just take over and start saying things that you know they're going to want to hear because you already got this great following. Now if I just keep on playing to that following, I'll be set. I'll be in this position. Everyone's going to love me. That's the mindset of the Pharisee. That's not the mindset of Jesus Christ. And it's obvious because look at what he says to him. Verse number 26, if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea in his own life also he cannot be my disciple. He's got a bunch of people following him saying you know what, you're here right now, but if you really want to follow me, now talk about hard preaching. You want to follow me? You have to hate your parents. You have to hate your children. Obviously he's proving a point. He's not literally meaning like I hate you, I hate you, I son I hate you. That's not what he's saying here. The point is nobody can come between you and Jesus Christ. You need to be willing to say if I'm really going to be a follower of Jesus Christ, it's all Jesus. My family's not going to pull me out from following Jesus Christ. Even my own son, even my own daughter, my own brother, my father, my mother is not going to come in between. I'm not going to put Jesus in second place to anybody else. And when you have a great multitude, I think he's kind of thinning the flock a little bit just to see hey who's really going to be a follower of me because I've got a lot of people here right now, but are you really going to be a follower of Jesus Christ?