Strengthening Your Grip - Jared McCormick
Teachers
Lesson Summary
The class focused on Jesus' teaching about the high cost of discipleship found in Luke 14:25‑33. The teacher highlighted three key verses—26, 27, and 33—showing that true disciples must be willing to love Jesus above even family, bear their cross, and renounce all they have. By comparing Luke’s hyperbolic language with similar themes in Mark 3, the discussion clarified that ‘hate’ was a Semitic expression of preference, not literal animosity. The lesson then shifted to who makes and transforms disciples. Using Mark 3:13‑14 and Acts 4:12‑13, the teacher demonstrated that Jesus initiates the calling and spends three‑and‑a‑half years equipping the apostles, who later boldly proclaim the gospel. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:18‑20) was presented as a call for believers to continue this work, with the Word of God as the means. Historical and contemporary examples illustrated the potential cost of following Christ when families or cultures oppose the faith, encouraging believers to prioritize spiritual family over blood relations while trusting Jesus to transform them.
Key Scriptures
Now great crowds accompanied 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 bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or, what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
And he went up on the mountain and called to him those he desired. And they came to him. And he appointed 12, whom he named apostles.