Luke 9:57-62
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Luke’s gospel. Our reading today is Luke chapter
nine, verses 57 through 62. If you’re using the pew Bible,
you can find that on page 868. Luke’s Gospel, chapter 9, verses
57 through 62. Remember that Jesus and his disciples
have taken a break as they have ended their Galilean ministry.
Jesus has set his mind on going to Jerusalem to do the work of
redemption. And along the way, Jesus has
been teaching his disciples about the cost of following him. And
so again, today we see a lesson where he teaches three would
be disciples, the true cost of following Jesus. So let us hear
God’s word together, beginning at verse 57 of chapter nine of
Luke’s gospel. Speaking of the disciples, the
word of God says this, as they were going along the road, someone
said to Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus
said to him, foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have
nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. To another
he said, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first
go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, leave
the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim
the kingdom of God. Yet another said, I will follow
you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.
Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and
looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Amen. This is God’s word. Let us pray together. Lord, we
ask that you would help us to see ourselves in this short passage
of scripture, show us our reluctance, our hesitancy, our but lords,
where we would say we would follow you, Lord, anywhere except for
let us first do this or that. Lord, reveal to us this day our
hindrances. from serving you and following
you in the way and the ministry of the kingdom. Help us give
us ears and eyes to hear and see this day. We pray in Jesus
name. Amen. Well, as of yesterday, so it
seems, or maybe Thursday night, college football is back. Some
of you probably don’t care. But we watch these games, and
afterwards, we hear the star of the game. Maybe it’s the quarterback
or the receiver who caught the most touchdowns or the defensive
end who made the most stops. We hear them say something like
this. Well, I just wanted to go out there today and give it
110%. I wanted to give it my all. I
wanted to leave it all out on the field. And then you’ll hear
words like this. My commitment is to the school.
My commitment is to the coach, the program. I want to make coach
proud. I want to make the school proud.
I want to make the fans happy to be fans of our team. You see, if these players made
any excuses, if their speech after a loss was, well, I just
wanted to go out there today and just give it 50%, I just
wanted to stay up late Friday night playing video games. And
then whatever I had left, I’d put that on the effort on the
field. No, if that was the motivation,
if that were the principles or values of a player, guess what?
They would be out. They would be off the team. No,
a team requires 100%. No excuses. Everything. We have a passage of scripture
today where There’s some disciples or maybe we should call them
would be disciples. And basically they say to Jesus,
I’ll serve you, but. I’ll serve you if, I’ll serve
you when, I’ll serve you and then you fill in the blank for
their excuse of why it will happen later or at another time or when
or if the conditions are right. And Jesus, much like a college
coach, a professional coach says, you know, if you’re not all in,
You must not really be a disciple, a follower of the Lord Jesus. We wonder sometimes, do we not,
why the statistics about the American church are as they are
today. Just a week or two ago, I was
watching a news channel, a national news channel, a cable channel,
and on this news program, they were talking about the decline
of the American church. And they weren’t really speaking
of the decline of the Roman Catholic Church, the decline of the mainline
church. No, it was specifically targeted
at the modern evangelical church, Bible believing, so-called, Jesus
preaching, evangelistically minded church in America. And the decline
was being discussed and they had several different preachers
and ministers on there discussing why this would be the case. And the first thing they talked
about was the decline of values and morals in our culture. Why is our culture so rotten?
They were saying, well, it can be directly traced to the decline
in our allegiance to the American church. If we were to take this
passage of scripture today and not speak about Jesus’ front-end
conversation with would-be disciples, but, well, as we really will
end up doing, we’ll apply it to ourselves. The question becomes
this, why or what are the hindrances that we have to serving Jesus,
being all in, giving 100%? We wonder why. The church is in the fit and
decline that it is in today. We wonder why it is where it
is. Well, the Bible requires of Christians. It requires Sabbath keeping.
It requires tithing and offering our very lives to the church.
It requires maturity and service. I sometimes muse and wonder and
think that before the end of my pastoral career as an American
pastor in a Bible believing denomination, in a church in the vein and in
the thrust and the history of the Reformation, I wonder sometimes
two things. The first thing I wonder is this,
what will happen if persecution hits the American church? Will
there be faith enough to have something left or will, when
the going gets tough, people just scatter and say, you know,
I love Jesus, but this church business is just too much. Or
will we be like our brothers and sisters in China that say,
no matter what, I can’t wait to serve the Lord in worship,
in service and in growth. The other thing sometimes I wonder
about in the decline of the American church is will churches in the
middle to the latter part of the 21st century, So in the next
maybe 30 years, by the year 2050 or so, will churches have enough
support to be self-sustaining into the future? These are things
that I wonder and I believe what Jesus asked of his disciples
or his would-be disciples in our passage helps us think about
this. We’re plagued in America today
with a century or a century and a half of easy believism, where
salvation in the United States was simply this. We play some
soft music and you hear a rousing speech and then you’re asked
simply to do this. You walk down the aisle or you
say a simple prayer. And guess what? You’re a Christian.
You’re not going to hell. You’re going to heaven. And that’s
where the Christian life stops. And so we have this century or
century and a half of easy believism. The second thing we’ve done in
America is we have allowed people to love the kingdom of this world
and to sprinkle a little Jesus on top. And what I mean by that
is simply this. Christianity, as one conservative
Bible scholar wrote nearly 100 years ago, he said, Christianity
has become a condiment for Americans. No longer is it a world and life
view where we come to Jesus and we change the way we live, that
we change the way we act, we change the way we do marriage
and child rearing, the way we spend our money, the way we spend
our time, the way we spend our work too. We just live a basic
normal pagan lifestyle like the rest of our neighbors in America.
And we sprinkle a little Jesus on like it’s ketchup or salt
by going to church about 25 to 30 times a year. We read our
Bibles on occasion and maybe we take in some Christian music. And dear friends, this fix we
are in in America is the result of not only easy believism, not
only the church allowing people to love the kingdom of this world
and sprinkle a little Jesus on. But here’s a third reason, and
this reason really points back to people like me, preachers.
Preachers are just too afraid to speak the truth. Preachers are too afraid to offend
the congregation by saying, you need to be Sabbath keepers, or
by saying you’re Sabbath breakers. Or to say Jesus demands everything
of you. Would you dare find a preacher
in 21st century America who would say what Jesus has said to these
three men? I really don’t think you’re fit
for my kingdom. That’s what Jesus has said to all three of them,
isn’t it? You want membership in the church. You come on in
is what we say in the American church. What does Jesus say?
Well, not unless you’re a hundred percent, a thousand percent serious
about following me. Should you enter into the kingdom? Jesus is dead serious about his
disciples’ commitment to following him. Let’s take a peek, if we
can, at a few of the things that we find in this passage. And
I want us to look at it under these three headings. Jesus rejects
three proposals for following him. Jesus rejects three would-be
disciples’ proposals for following him. And their excuses are comfort,
Their excuses are wealth and their excuses are relationships. First, comfort. And we find it
in verses 57 and 58. It says, as they were going along
the road, someone said to him, Jesus, I will follow you wherever
you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes
have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of
man has nowhere to lay his head. This would be disciple must be
naive. He must not be aware of who Jesus
is and what he has personally endured to preach and to bring
into effect his own kingdom. And he says, I’ll follow you
wherever you go. He must not know about the cross. He must not know about the road
through Jerusalem, where he’ll be scorned and shamed. He must
not know of the courts of the church, the courts of the Romans,
where he’ll be despised and rejected, where he’ll be beaten, he’ll
be whipped, he’ll be crowned with this crown of thorns, he’ll
be stabbed with a spear in his side. You see, there’s so much
excitement surrounding Jesus that following Jesus looks like
a whole lot of fun. 100 percent of the time, Jesus,
I’ll follow you wherever you go. Well, this man was probably
a scribe. We figure that out by reading
the parallel passage in Matthew’s gospel. And so this man who is
likely a scribe would have been one of the official interpreters
of the Old Testament scriptures. He would have been a copyist.
He would have been an interpreter. He would have been an official
teacher. He would have been. a big man in Israel. And so he
sees an opportunity with Jesus. Here is this man who, when he
opens his mouth to teach the word, as Jesus did early in his
ministry at the temple or the tabernacle at Capernaum, he can
open the Bible and he can faithfully interpret it in such a way that
it amazes the audience and it feeds their souls. And so a scribe
who would often attach himself to pupils or pupils would attach
themselves to a faithful scribe. This man sees, oh, here’s Jesus. If I attach myself to his school
of teaching, I could be promoted. I could make some money. And
so when he says, I will follow you wherever you go, he’s not
thinking of crosses. He’s not thinking of spears and
thorns. He’s not thinking of whips and
the rejection that Jesus will face from people. No, he’s thinking
what’s in it for me. For a scribe in this day and
time and this culture that Jesus is speaking into, they were respected. They were followed. They were
revered. They had a place of honor in
society. This was a way to boost his resume. But the reality, the reality
of Jesus life, he states so clearly, he says, foxes have holes. The
birds of the air have nests. But the son of man, Jesus, has
nowhere to lay his head. And the reality of Jesus’ ministry
is already this. He’s been run out of his own
hometown. He’s been threatened within an inch of his life. He
is a hunted and wanted man by the Romans and by the Jewish
authorities. And he will make his way to Jerusalem,
where he will suffer and die for the sins of people. Go back
to Jesus’ parable of the soils. We cast the word of God. We preach
the word of God. It falls on different soils. This man is the rocky soil. He sees the kingdom. He hears
the gospel. And it falls, the seed does,
on rocky soil. And the man wants to follow Jesus
until it disrupts the comforts of this life and afflictions
come. And so what is Jesus saying to
this would be disciple? What is Jesus saying to us who
sit here today? He’s saying, do you value comfort
over the kingdom? Would you rather have a place
to sleep at night? Would you rather have the things
of this world than the things of eternity? He’s speaking about
our comfort. Now he’s not saying you can’t
have a comfortable mattress. He’s not saying you can’t have
your easy chair. He’s not saying you can’t have your automobile
with its smooth riding shocks and all those things. He’s not
saying that at all. He’s attacking really our attitudes. Do we value
comfort over the inconvenience of being a sold out 100% all
in disciple of Jesus? Foxes have holes. The birds of
the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his
head. Comfort. Well, the next thing
that stands in the way of a would-be disciple is not comfort, but
it’s it’s wealth. And we find this hindrance to
this would-be disciple in the next two verses, 59 and 60. In verse 59, it says, To another,
Jesus said, Follow me. But the would be disciple said
to Jesus, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. Now, you would think on the surface
in just simply reading the English translation in your Bibles that
are in your laps, that this man just simply wants to have a funeral
service for his dead father. That’s not at all what’s going
on here. In this day and time in which Jesus is speaking to
these would-be disciples, as soon as a person passed away,
they were buried. There was no Rich and Thompson,
no Lowe Funeral Home. There was no undertaker. There
was no embalming process. There were no coffins to select,
no vaults to purchase, no graveside services to plan, no church services,
no potluck meals for the grieving family, none of that. The person
was immediately upon their death, carried out of their place of
death directly to a grave where they would have been placed.
And so when this man says to Jesus, let me first go and bury
my father, this is what he’s saying. Jesus, I have a father
who’s old. I’m an inheritor. I need to take
the time it will take for my father to pass away and for us
to really bury him and for me to inherit my portion of his
household. Isn’t that a funny thing about
this passage? Jesus is saying to this man,
it’s a funny thing. You want to wait for your father
to die. You want to bury him when he finally does die. You
want to wait for your inheritance and get a hold of it and then
follow me. He wants to, as it were, get
his ducks in a row. But what does Jesus say? You
let the dead bury the dead. It’s a sort of a pun. It’s a
funny way of speaking. Jesus is saying, look, if you’re
not of my kingdom, you’re spiritually dead. And you who are spiritually
dead and not kingdom minded, you just keep on burying your
dead as long as they’re dying. But those who are truly alive
in Jesus, You will walk forward and you will walk forward serving
the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. The dead can bury their
dead. They can keep their worldly priorities
and their worldly calendars. This is probably where we are
as American Christians, wouldn’t you say? Lord, I’ll follow you
anywhere, but first, let me achieve the American dream. Lord, I’ll
follow you anywhere, but you’re not gonna get a tithe out of
me. Lord, I’ll follow you anywhere, but let somebody else do the
work of the church. Lord, I’ll follow you anywhere,
but let me have about 20 Sundays at the beach and in the mountains
and in other places of interest to me. You see, we are so preoccupied,
are we not in America? We’re so preoccupied with our
wealth and with our comfort that when Jesus comes calling, We
don’t like the fine print. When Jesus comes calling and
says, I want all of you. I want every bit of your heart.
I want every bit of your time. I want every bit of everything
in your life to submit to me and to my word. We hesitate. We want to take a little time
to bury the dead, to get our affairs in order, to achieve
the American dream, to have just one more trip to the beach or
just another jaunt to the mountains, or let me finish raising my kids.
That’s expensive, Lord. And we wait, we wait on our service
to the kingdom. What stands in the way of this
would-be disciple? It’s his inheritance, it’s wealth. What stood in the way of the
other would-be disciple? Comfort. What stands in the way
of this third would-be disciple? Well, it’s relationships. And
we find this in verses 61 and 62. Verse 61 says, Yet another
said to Jesus, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say
farewell to those at my home. And Jesus said to him, No one
who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the
kingdom. You know, something that could
keep us from following Jesus is, well, maybe we could we could
get homesick. We’d miss our family. We’d miss
our friends. We would have to give up things
that we know and love and hold on to dearly. We get homesick. And Jesus knows this of this
third would-be disciple. Jesus knows that if this would-be
disciple went back home and said his goodbyes, and his mother
would say, well, let me cook you one final meal. His dad would
say, well, it’s threshing time or harvest time. Let’s do the
harvest together one more time. Or brothers and sisters and loved
ones would say, we’ll miss you if you follow this teacher, Jesus.
Jesus knows that if he goes back home, He’ll get homesick and
he’ll never leave and never serve the kingdom. And Jesus says no
one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is
fit for the kingdom of God. You see, we live in a culture,
we live in a time just as Jesus would be disciples, where our
hearts are divided. We want to serve God because
after all, God made us and he saves us. Why wouldn’t we want
to serve him? but we want to serve him just
enough so that we still have our free time. We still have
our wealth, our comfort, and our relationships, our minds,
our hearts are divided. And is it a wonder that the American
church is where it is today? Membership and attendance in
American churches are declining at 7% per year. You do the math. There’s only
so many 7% of decline before you get to zero. There’s only
so many years ahead before this lack of commitment to Jesus and
his church makes us like the churches in Europe. You see, we’re only 50 to 75
years behind them. You know, we have these missionaries
to Europe who come and visit us from time to time, and they
tell us about doing ministry in post-Christian Europe. Church
buildings, wonderful, beautiful houses of worship are now nightclubs. They’re becoming mosque for other
faith. They are becoming apartment buildings. Just down the street from where
my brother lives in Washington, D.C. is a beautiful church building.
And he working in commercial real estate a few years ago noted
that his church was looking for a building. They approached this
church property owner and said, we’d like to have your building
as a house of worship. But you know what? The real estate
market there is so driven that they could get more money for
a church building and convert it into condominiums, funky ones
at that. And so we’re losing houses of
worship because congregations are declining and can no longer
keep and maintain. Did you know that our denomination
at one point in time had several downtown Charlotte churches? We had First Associate Reform
Presbyterian Church in Charlotte. We also had the East Avenue Tabernacle,
Tabernacle ARP. And over the years, their membership
and their effectiveness declined. One of those buildings, after
it burned and the church sold it, has become a museum of art.
The other has been, in recent years, it has become the Great
Aunt Stella Center, which hosts, yes, a church, but it hosts many
other events which we would hardly call Christian. And so, dear
brothers and sisters, I’m putting a challenge on you today as saints
of God in this place. What will be of this place in
the next 50 years if we’re like these three would-be disciples?
Jesus, I’ll serve you, but first, Jesus, I’ll follow you anywhere,
but I need my ease and comfort. Jesus, I’ll follow you wherever
you go, wherever you send, whatever you require, but don’t ask me
for my time. Don’t ask me for my money. Don’t
ask me for my help. I’ll show up on my terms. I’ll
do church on my terms. Where will this place and other
churches in America be in the next 30 to 50 years if we’re
like these would-be disciples? Wouldn’t it be interesting if
Jesus came on the scene today and he said, you all are disciples
of Christ. I want you to follow me out this
door into the world. How many of us would say but
Jesus? And how many of us would just drop it all and walk and
follow him because he is worthy to be served. He is worthy to
be followed and he is completely trustworthy. He who made the
heavens and the earth had no hole like a fox. He who hung
the stars in the heavens had no nest like the birds of the
air, yet he loved us and he came to serve us. This is our Savior
and this is his calling on our lives. And what is he really
asking us today? He’s asking us about our values.
He’s not asking, do you have an easy chair? Give it up. Do
you have a car with a comfortable ride and shocks? You need to
get rid of that. He’s not saying to be a Christian, you’ve got
to give up these things. No, he’s saying this. Where is
your heart? Where are your dollars, where your sense, where is your
time, where your talents, where is your commitment? Do you love
the lost so much that you’ll give up some of your own things
to make sure they know Jesus? He’s speaking of eternal comfort,
eternal wealth. and eternal relationships. But the question he’s placing
on these would be disciples and on us today is. Where do you
value? Do you value the kingdom of this
world or do you value the kingdom that shall never, ever end? Let us pray together. Our Lord
and God, we thank you for Jesus and his plain and clear teaching
that reveals to the hearts of men and women and boys and girls,
what they value, what they love. Lord, as you have shown us these
things this day, do some mighty work in our lives so that we
put our faith, our trust, our hope in Jesus. And we put our,
all our efforts, all our loves, all our resources into the work
of the kingdom. This we ask and pray in Jesus
name. Amen.