Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on March 23, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
At Kingdom Priorities today, In Luke chapter 9, verses 57 through 62, we invite you to turn in your Bibles. You can also pull out one of these pew Bibles. It’s on page 920, 920, and it will also be up on the screen so you can see it or read it in lots of places. But it’s awesome if you’re in your own Bibles to see where we’re talking from today. We’re talking about Kingdom Priorities today and what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
And that’s what we’re going to be looking at in the passage, because Jesus is asking three people, consider the cost. Really think about this decision. Professing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, believing that he died on the cross, that he was buried and rose from the dead so that you might have eternal life, is not a decision that you should make lightly. It’s a very simple decision to make. Even a child can decide to follow Jesus Christ.
But what we’re going to find in the text today, it’s not easy to follow the Lord, and it’s something that we have to consider if we’re going to do that. Now in America, it’s not that difficult to follow the Lord. But if you were in a Muslim country and you were sharing the Gospel, you would have to then go after just sharing the gospel, saying, now if you really want to make this decision today, you have to understand that when you go home after your parents find out all of your things are going to be outside the house, they will have confiscated the money out of your account. And when you show up at your job tomorrow morning, your boss is going to say, you no longer work here because you are a follower of Jesus Christ. And furthermore, we’re going to have to help you find a place to live and another part of this country where you won’t have any friends, you won’t have any relatives, you’ll have to start all over again.
Because if you stay here, you actually risk losing your life. So I know people that are overseas sharing the gospel missions in a Muslim country. And that’s exactly what they have to tell people. You have to count the cost. It’s simple to decide to follow Jesus, but it’s not easy.
And that’s what we find here today. In Luke 9, as I begin reading in verse 57, as they were traveling on the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus told him, foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. And then he said to another, follow me, Lord. He said, first let me go bury my father.
But he told him, let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God. Another said, I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go and say goodbye to those at my house. But Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. May we pray.
Heavenly Father, as we look at your word today, that you have been so kind in giving to us and preserving, that we might have knowledge of salvation, but how to live, Give us understanding, give us a desire to follow your will, that we might honor your son in his name we pray. Amen. Once again, going back to the text, we’re going to see that some things are repeated here. And it’s just like kids, you can’t tell them, brush your teeth and then for the rest of their lives they brush their teeth. You have to tell them what over and over and over again.
So when we see something repeated in scripture, God is really trying to emphasize that here. And what he’s trying to emphasize are these two ideas. Following him. We see it three times there. I will follow you.
Jesus said, follow me. And another man said, I will follow you. And the other idea here is the kingdom of God. It’s mentioned twice. So we want to spend some time so we really understand what is Jesus talking about when he says follow me and what is he talking about when he’s talking about the kingdom.
Let’s go to Acts chapter one, verse six and you’ll see it titled there at the top of the screen. It’s capital T, capital H, capital E, the kingdom. Because we are talking about the overriding glorious rule of God on earth someday. And we read here in Acts chapter 1:6, when they had come together, they asked him, lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time? It’s a little T H e there.
They are short sighted, understanding what the kingdom is that Jesus is talking about. And they are also self sighted about it. They weren’t seeing the big picture of God’s glorious rule over all the earth. They were seeing the kingdom as being the nation of Israel once again having a prominent place in the world. They were also self sided because they were focused on the smaller picture of looking at themselves and thinking, what’s my place in the kingdom going to be?
We’ve just read about that in Luke. We’ve looked at it where they were arguing, am I going to be number one, number two, number three, am I first or am I last? And they continue to have this argument amongst themselves because they’re thinking about the kingdom as being just about Israel and they’re thinking the kingdom about being just about themselves. They were short sighted, they were self sighted. Let’s go back to Daniel, chapter two, verse 44, and we’re going to look at some prophecies that they would have known from their teaching about the kingdom.
Daniel said, in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And this kingdom will not be left to another people. It will crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but will itself endure forever. God’s glorious rule will be one that is eternal. Jesus wasn’t talking about a kingdom that his disciples could just enjoy that day where they would be elevated to positions and Israel would be once again prominent in the world.
He’s talking about a greater, more glorious kingdom. And we will know when that kingdom comes because it will be eternal and there will be no kingdoms that can conquer it. There will be no kingdoms to follow after it. God’s glorious rule, the kingdom will be eternal. But Daniel also tells us that God’s glorious rule will be worldwide.
Not just eternal, but worldwide. Not just a location on earth, but the entire earth. Daniel said, I continued watching in the night visions. And suddenly one, like a son of man was coming with the clouds of heaven. This is a prophecy about Jesus Christ.
And he approached the ancient of days. This would be about God the Father. And he was escorted before him and he was given dominion and glory. And here we have the concept again. He was given a kingdom so that those of not just Israelite descent, but those of every people, those of every nation, those of every language should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away. And his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. The disciples were looking for a smaller kingdom, a kingdom of Israel alone. But the kingdom that Jesus is talking about is one that is not only eternal, but it is worldwide. If we go to the end of the Bible.
In Revelation, chapter seven, we read this again about God’s glorious rule and kingdom will be worldwide. John said, after this I looked and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language which no one could number. And they were standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne and to the lamb sometimes.
Easy for us to think about God’s kingdom or the church just being our local fellowship. Or maybe it’s the Forest Lake Division in Wisconsin. But God’s kingdom is about the church that is worldwide. It’s God’s desire that everyone come to saving faith. Jesus died for every nation.
Jesus died for every tribe. Jesus died for every people, and he died for every language.
God’s glorious rule will be worldwide because he desires it, but it will also be worldwide because he deserves it. And when we share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people, yes, we want to see them come to faith so that they can have the blessings of it. But we also want them to come to faith so that they will worship God one day and give him the glory that he deserves. Let’s go to Zechariah 14:9. God’s glorious rule will be eternal.
It’s going to be worldwide. But God’s glorious rule will also have just one focus. Zechariah 14. 9 says, on that day the Lord will become king over the whole earth. The Lord alone and his name alone.
You know, the disciples were possibly still more concerned about their roles in the kingdom. And they keep arguing about it throughout Scripture. Who’s first, who’s last, who’s most important. Even the mother of John and James came and said, jesus, please let my two sons have the number one and the number two position. They were also short sighted and self sighted in what the kingdom is.
Because the kingdom isn’t about any of us. It’s not about all of us collectively. It’s supposed to be about God. We tend to focus on how the kingdom will benefit us. And yes, it will.
But our primary focus, according to what Jesus is telling us, is that it should be focusing on God. Yes, walking on streets of gold, being with our loved ones that have gone before us will be a wonderful thing. But the best thing will be to behold the face of God, to stand in his glory and to give him praise. Because his kingdom is to have only one focus, and that is Him.
That’s the kingdom. Now let’s look at what it means to follow me. We’re going to call this the call.
We go back to Luke 9 and we see three times this idea of following Jesus. In verse 57, an individual says, I will follow you. In verse 59, Jesus says, you follow me. And then there’s another individual in verse 61 that says, I will follow you. What does the word follow mean?
Well, the definition means to attend, to accompany, to go with or follow a Teacher. Did any of y’ all ever have a teacher in school? I mean I got up in the morning and I ate breakfast and, and as a six year old, some of you won’t understand this. I walked like three miles to school alone. Can you imagine that happening today?
It just doesn’t. That’s how old I am. But I would spend all day with my teacher. But at the end of the day, what did I do? I came home, I walked back home and I was with my parents and I slept in my own bed.
I had my favorite toys that I played with. This type of following that Jesus is talking about is not an eight hour a day following. When someone followed a teacher in this day, that meant that they slept where they slept. They ate the food that they ate, they shared toothpaste. I mean they were very personal and that they were so close because they wanted to learn every single thing that they could.
Follow me. Me was a deep commitment in the complete Word study Dictionary. New Testament Zodiatus kind of puts the this way. The first step to following Jesus is, and here’s the key word, cleaving to him. And you cleave to him in belief, you cleave to him in trust and you cleave to him in obedience.
In other words, it’s not just a handshake. Jesus, I believe in you. Jesus, I trust you. Jesus, I obey you. It’s Jesus, I believe you, I trust you, I want to obey you.
It’s this cleaving is such a closeness. That’s what follow me means when Jesus talks about it. Let’s go to Luke chapter 9, verses 23 through 24. Hunter preached on this a couple weeks ago about denying yourself and taking up your cross. And again we’re going to see this term here to follow me.
It’s mentioned twice. And what does he say it means? He said to them all, if anyone wants to follow, follow after me. Let him deny himself, meaning that I no longer matter. Only Jesus matters.
And then to take up your cross daily and follow me, for whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life because of me will save it. We don’t really understand that in America. We don’t expect that if we lead someone to faith in Jesus Christ, we when they leave this building that they’re going to be killed for their faith. But it does happen in other parts of the country.
I was reading one book and the man said that he was in Somalia. And all they did is they handed out Bibles to people. The people didn’t even know what the Bibles were. And when they walked out in the street, snipers shot them because they thought that they were following Christ. That’s the type of, of commitment to following Christ.
We’re supposed to have that we would be willing to die for him if we needed to. John, chapter 8, verse 12. We read this. Jesus spoke to them again. He said, I am the light of the world.
Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. If you follow Jesus, not only are you in the light that he shines upon you, but you choose never again to walk in darkness. That’s why we talk about repentance. And repentance means turning from walking in darkness to walking in the light, meaning the light of Jesus and having life. So we talk about people, have faith.
That’s placing your faith in Jesus Christ. But, but it goes along with this term of repentance. And that means that I’m going one way, I’m doing what I want to do, I’m doing what my parents want me to do, I’m doing what my friends want to do. But when you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you have to turn. That’s the word, repentance.
And you walk in the other way and you’re doing what Jesus wants you to do and what Jesus desires of you. Instead of following your way. Jesus is saying, if you really are following, following me, if you’ve accepted the call, you’re not going to just be repentant once in your life when you come to faith. But every hour of every day of every week of every year of your life, you’re saying, God, I am choosing to turn to walk your way and not the way that I desire. First, Thessalonians 5, verses 4 through 6 tells us a little bit more about what repentance looks like.
But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the dark for this day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness. So then let us not sleep like the rest, but let us stay awake and be self controlled. In order to live a life of constant repentance, you have to stay awake, you have to be alert.
You have to be listening to the Father and asking him, how am I supposed to live? But then it’s not just enough to be alert and to know, but the text says, then be self controlled. In other words, choose to live that way. Choose to live daily a life of walking in the light, not darkness. Ephesians 5, 8 through 11, we find more information.
What does this walking in repentance look like? Again, we have the same idea. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Here’s the command. Walk like you’re a children of light.
He tells us, the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth. In other words, if you are living a life of repentance, there’s. There’s going to be constant goodness in your life. There’s going to be constant righteousness, which means you’re making right decisions based on what God wants you to do. And you’re going to be walking in truth, not in falsehoods and lies.
Verse 10 says that you’re going to test what is pleasing to the Lord. That means that before you say stuff during the day, you say, God, am I really supposed to say this? Somebody comes up and shares a difficult situation. You. And instead of just blurting out something out of your own wisdom, you stop and you ask, God, what do you want me to say to this person today?
But it doesn’t just affect your speech. Wherever you go, you’re going to ask God, am I supposed to go to this place? Whatever I say, whatever I do, wherever I go? Scripture makes it so basic that it says that everything that we eat and everything that we drink is supposed to be to the glory of God. And if we’re supposed to stop and say, God, if what I’m drinking today is good, I’m going to drink it.
But tell me if it’s not. If we’re supposed to ask about everything we eat, God, is this within your will that I eat this today? Those are the simplest things. How much more important it is when you come to major decisions in your life that you’re testing to see what God wants you to do about it. Verse 11.
Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness. Don’t turn back to going your own way. Continue in this life of repentance. And when you see sin, don’t try to cover it up. Don’t try to sugarcoat it.
You should expose it and say, that’s wrong, that’s sinful. And when you live that way, you’re showing what it means to truly follow Jesus. John, chapter 10, verse 2 through 5. What else does it mean to follow me? Well, it’s about knowing his voice.
Knowing his voice. And the passage starts out there. It says, the gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice. So what are we talking about here? Well, Shepherds kept sheep and shepherds kept them out in the hills.
They kept them in the fields, and they watched over them and they took care of of them pretty much 24, 7. But every shepherd needs to go to Walmart every once in a while. Okay? They need some new shoes, they need new clothes. They need to go visit someone in their family.
So when they weren’t able to watch their sheep, there were these pens or enclosures that there was somebody there. And you could bring your sheep and leave them. It’s kind of like leaving your dog, you know, when you go on vacation or leaving your kids with someone else. But it wouldn’t just be your sheep there. There would have been several shepherds that had come and left their sheep in this pen while they went and did the different things that they needed to do.
So the picture is here. One of these shepherds is coming back to get his sheep out of this large corral or enclosure of sheep. And there are all these sheep in there. And if I were to walk over here or there, wherever, say I saw 150 sheep and you were beside me, do you think you’d be able to tell them all apart from one another? I mean, we just.
We just wouldn’t. They would all look the same. I mean, maybe one would have a crooked ear and a limp and you might know them, but generally you wouldn’t recognize all of them. So this shepherd is coming back and he’s got to figure out, how do I find my sheep in the midst of all of these? And it doesn’t say that.
He goes in and he picks them up one by one. Oh, are you mine? You know, that’s not what he does. It says he calls his own sheep by name and he leads them out. All this shepherd has to do is call his sheep.
And he doesn’t say, all you sheep, come here. What does he call them by? He has a name for each and every one of them. Any of y’ all name your pets? Okay, are any of y’ all farmers in here?
And you have like 50 headed cattle or more and you have a name for every one of them? Is that the way that it works? I don’t think you name all your cows. Okay, that’s great. That’s special.
What if you had a thousand? Would you still name them all? You would? Okay, they’re just acting like Jesus is what they’re doing. All right?
But that shows how personally interested God is in us because he knows everybody’s name in the world. It’s that especially those that are His. So the shepherd walks up and he calls him. Judy, Sarah, I don’t mean to offend you. If I mention your name, you know, whatever you name sheep, I’m not sure.
And they all come out to Him. Verse 4 says, When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. And it says, the sheep follow him because you read it with me. What are the next four words? They know his voice.
He knows their name, and they know what? They know his voice because it says they will never follow a stranger. Instead, they will run away from him because they don’t know the voice of strangers. So the question is, do you know the shepherd’s voice? Do you know when Jesus is speaking to you in the promptings that he places in your heart and in your mind?
We can count on him to do that because we have this promise. In Psalm 32:8, God says, I will instruct you and show you the way to go with my eye on you. I will give counsel. If God promises us that he will show us how to go and what decisions to make, He. He will fulfill his promise.
But we have to know how to hear his voice and to know the shepherd. To know Jesus, you have to spend time with him regularly and consistently. The sheep didn’t learn the shepherd’s voice because they were with him for an hour on Sunday mornings once a week, or because they spent five minutes with him two or three days a week in the morning. They knew his voice because they were with him regularly and consistently. Inconsistent presence with the shepherd is going to lead to uncertainty in knowing his voice.
So if you have things in your mind, you’re like, I don’t know what God wants me to do. It may be because he’s speaking to you, but you just don’t know his voice because you’re not regularly and consistently spending time with Him. And if you can’t distinguish his voice from all the other, what I call noise in the world, you may follow the wrong voice. Because there are many voices in your life, whether they’re from inside of you or outside of you, that are telling you, do this, do that, do this. You’ve got to learn how to focus and hear what God wants you to do.
How many of you listen to music? Come on now. Everybody does. How many of you have a favorite artist that you really like? Okay.
You know, if that artist comes out with a new song, you don’t need to hear it on the radio. This is so and so’s new song. As soon as you hear the voice, you know what that’s my favorite artist. Because you’re listening to it all the time. That’s what Jesus is saying.
If we listen to him regularly and consistently, we’re going to learn to recognize his voice. There’s an interesting narrative in First Kings, chapter 19, about Elijah and the voice of God. And in this narrative, Elijah desperately needed to hear the voice of God. It tells us that he was discouraged, he was exhausted, he was afraid, and he needed to hear the voice of God. And just to remind you of what had just happened, he’s been up on the mountaintop and the priests of BAAL had offered their sacrifices and they had cut their bodies and they screamed and they danced and they shouted and they sung all day long, asking their God to call down fire.
And he never did. But when Elijah prayed, God sent down fire that not only burned up the sacrifice, it burned up all the rocks, it burned up all the water that he had poured on, completely obliterated it so that people would know that Jehovah, God was the true God. It was a great day of victory for Elijah. But he was discouraged. He was exhausted, and he was afraid.
Because even though he knew God was God, there was this woman called Jezebel. And she said, I’m going to kill you for that. And he was so afraid of her. His plea to God was, I have had enough, Lord, take my life. And what did God do?
He sent him into the wilderness for 40 days to be alone. And during that time, he entered a cave and God needed to speak to him. Elijah came out of the cave and there was this mighty wind. It was so strong that it tore the mountains apart and it made the cliffs shatter and fall. What a strong wind that was.
The scripture tells us God’s voice was not in that mighty wind. Then he heard a mighty earthquake.
But God’s voice was not in the earthquake. And lastly, outside of that cave, there was this roaring fire. We’re talking about acres and acres of trees on fire. The sound that that would make. But God’s voice was not in the fire.
Scripture tells us after the fire, there was a voice, but it was a still, small voice. It was just soft whisper. And that’s where God’s voice was. To know God’s voice, we have to spend time alone. We have to get away.
We have to dedicate time to him. For Elijah, that prophet of God, it took 40 days of silence for him to hear the whisper of God. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. Moses spent 40 days in the mountain alone twice. But that being alone with God Being away from the noise of the world, which is what allowed them to hear the still, soft whisper of God in their life.
And so it is that we learn to know the voice of Jesus by pushing everything aside and regularly speaking, spending time with Him.
The main way to know him today is to read His Word, because this is God speaking to you still. The Jews had it in the Old Testament. Jesus came and he brought the Word in the flesh. We, we are so blessed to have it printed today. Spending time listening to the words of Jesus, listening to his voice is going to help you to understand his voice when he whispers about decisions and things going on in your life.
John 10:27 through 29. We also find out that follow me means not just repentance and knowing Jesus voice, but it means this wonderful thing called absolute security.
The sheep felt completely protected when they were with the shepherd. They’re a little anxious when that other person was watching them. But when their shepherd was there, they were certain that things were fine. In John 10:27 29, we read, My sheep, hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me here.
Again, it’s about following him. And he gives this promise. He says, I give them eternal life. That means it’s never going to end. He could have just stopped there.
But he emphasizes that again and he says, they will never perish. That would be a great blessing. I have eternal life. I’m never going to perish. But Jesus said, no, I want to go even further than that.
He says, no one will snatch them out of my hand. He’s holding us in his hand. And as if that isn’t enough to give us the assurance that we have absolutely.
Okay. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. Talk about repetition here, how Jesus is wanting to instill absolute security in us. I give you eternal life.
It will never perish. You are in My hand. No one can remove you from there. And you are also in My Father’s hand. And no one can snatch you out of My Father’s hand.
The call, follow me, the kingdom, it’s about God. Lastly, we’re going to come back to our scripture and we’re going to look at the challenge.
And the challenge here is that following Jesus is simple, but it is not easy. A child can come to faith in Jesus Christ, but to make the commitment that he’s asking to, it’s something that grows over time, if not immediately. It’s not easy to follow the Lord going Back to the text we read. As they were traveling on the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus said, that’s fine, but you have to realize foxes have dens, the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay his head.
Jesus is talking about the cost of following him, and he’s telling this person, you say you want to follow me, but have you calculated the cost? Do you really understand what that means? In Luke chapter 14, verses 28 through 29, we’re going to visit this topic again because Jesus relayed it to his followers more than once. This is what we read there for. Which of you wanting to build a tower doesn’t first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, this man started to build and wasn’t able to finish. Have any of you ever built a house or remodeled? Did you make sure you had enough money before you started?
We know somebody, and he lived in a trailer, and then he was going to make his house nicer. So it he built a house around his trailer. But we guess he ran out of money because when you walked in the front door of his house, there was all this dirt, and then you walked into another door that went into his trailer. So he didn’t finish what he was doing. Now, when you walked into that, what would your reaction be?
You’d kind of chuckle, you’d laugh. You know what? What did this person do? What were they thinking? Jesus is saying, the same thing happens with us.
If we don’t count the cost of following him, we’re going to maybe fail at it, but it’s going to cause other people to ridicule us and say, you’re not really a follower because you don’t live the way you’re supposed to, and we’re going to cause Jesus to have a bad name. Have you calculated the cost? I had a friend recently who had the opportunity to share the gospel with someone who had asked them some questions. So he shared the gospel with them. And at the end of the discussion, the person who had engaged him about the gospel happened to be engaged to be married.
And his response was, I would risk losing my fiance if I did what you say and follow Jesus Christ.
That man was calculating the cost, and he understood there is a cost to following Jesus. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. After the cost. Jesus has the Next idea, there’s going to be change.
In verse 59, he said to another, follow me, Lord. He said, first let me go bury my father. But he told him, let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God. I think Jesus is using a figure of speech here.
It’s hyperbole. He’s exaggerating to get a point across. It’s similar to where Jesus said to follow me. You must hate your mother and your father. Well, Jesus didn’t literally mean to hate them.
He was just trying to emphasize, you’ve got to love me more than you love those that are closest to you. And there wasn’t anything wrong with going to bury your dead. But Jesus is making a point here. It’s about that there has to be a change in our life to our priorities. So the question is, are you willing to change your priorities?
You have to understand a little bit about Eastern culture, other side of the world versus Western culture. That’s where we live. There was an Arab leader on the news the other day talking to an American news person. And the Arab leader said, family is so important to us. You don’t understand it in America the way we do.
He said, if we move 10 minutes away from our parents, that’s too far. Whereas in America, in Western culture, if we moved 100 miles away from our parents, we might say, that’s not far enough.
So when Jesus was telling this man, you can’t go back and you bury your father, you have to understand. The man said, what are you talking about? Of course, everybody knows that I should be doing this. But Jesus was trying to make the point. You have to change your priorities if you’re going to follow him.
That’s part of the challenge. We have priorities that come from the world, from all the media that’s around us, that gets instilled in us. We have priorities that we get from wherever we go to school. Our friends try to tell us what our priorities should be. Our family tries to tell us what our priorities should be.
And. And we also struggle with ourself, coming up with what our priorities are supposed to be. But what Jesus is saying is that God alone deserves the right to establish the priorities of the citizens of his kingdom. Let me read that again. God alone deserves the right to establish the priorities of the citizens of his kingdom.
Because remember, we’re talking about the kingdom here. We’re not supposed to enter the kingdom of God with priorities and intentions that are contrary to what God’s intentions are or what His Priorities are. I mean, we hear on the news that we have illegal aliens that are in our country and they’re here. And then they’re saying, death to America. They destroy America.
They want to live here, but they don’t have our priorities. You can’t do that as a follower of Jesus Christ. When you follow him, you give up your priorities and you say, God, tell me what my priorities are. The challenge is in following Jesus. You have to be willing to change your priorities to be what God’s are.
There’s a cost, there’s a change. There’s a third person here. And the word here to think about is covenant. And the question is, do you understand the commitment? In verse 61, we read another said, I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go and say goodbye to those at my house.
But Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back back is fit for the kingdom of God.
What’s that mean? Well, if you’re a farmer and you’re plowing rows, there’s one thing that you have to do in order to have straight rows in your field. Can anybody tell me what it is? What do you have to do? Look straight forward.
Now, if you’ve taught your kids how to drive, you know how it is. What was that? Look at the road, you know, or my car. Now, one thing about it, if I glance too long, it tells me, you know, please look at the road. Does your car do that?
I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s getting that way. You’ve got to stay focused. And that’s what Jesus is saying. You have to be like a person plowing the field. If you’re going to look from side to side, you’re going to mess everything up.
If you’re going to follow me, you have to keep your eyes ahead on me.
And what I want to say, there’s. This is about covenant. We’re very used to having contracts in our life. If you buy a car, you have to sign a what? A contract.
If you buy a house, you have to do what? Sign a contract. If you have business dealings with someone, you sign a contract. And in that contract you’re either agreeing to do certain things or you’re agreeing to pay certain amounts of money. And then later on in the contract, there are these clauses that say, now if you don’t make your house payments, then what are they going to do?
They’re going to take your house away from you. And if you don’t make your car payments, they’re going to take the car away from you. Or on the other side it can say if the person sold you a house that really didn’t belong to them, you don’t have to pay them. There are these clauses that tell you how you can get out of these contractual agreements. Contractual agreements have clauses that allow either party to back out of the deal.
But what Jesus is telling us in our commitment is we don’t have a contract with him. We’re supposed to have a covenant. And when we talk about a covenant relationship, it means there are no clauses that allow you to back out of it. But there are also no clauses where God says, I can back out of my commitment to you to bring it down to earth. Choosing to place your faith in Jesus Christ is not supposed to be like test driving a car.
You know, I’m going to try here for 30 minutes, take it out on the highway, look under the hood, and if I don’t want it, I don’t have any commitment. That’s not what a decision to follow Jesus Christ looks like. It’s not like even an overnight stay with a friend, hey, let’s get together and watch the ball game. I’ll stay at your house, you know, and I’ll leave tomorrow. We don’t make a commitment to follow Jesus Christ.
That’s an overnight stay. It’s not a week long vacation. I’ll try this out for a week or two and then if I don’t like it, I’m not going to be a follower of Christ anymore. It’s not a temporary job. Jesus is not a stepping stone to something better.
And he’s certainly not like a man and a woman who instead of getting married, they just live together knowing that they can just walk out at any point. Following Jesus means that we have a covenant relationship with him that cannot be broken.
Don’t accept Jesus as Lord and Savior thinking that you have the option to divorce him if one day somehow you don’t like how things are turning out. If your mindset is like that when you decide to follow Jesus Christ, it’s not a full commitment and that is not true. Saving faith in your life. There’s a cost, there’s going to be change and there’s going to be a covenant. So I end today with some questions.
They’re not going to be on the screen. I didn’t get them up there. So you’ll have to pay attention and listen. The first question is, is your view of the kingdom short sighted and self sighted or is it really God sided? Are you not rejoicing for what the kingdom does for you, but you’re happy that it’s going to be eternal, that God is going to rule worldwide, and that his glory is going to be established.
And if that isn’t your thought process, when you’re thinking about heaven and eternity, you need to step back and say, God, make my thoughts be more honoring to you than they are about myself. The next question Are you truly following Jesus? And we talked about repentance, that it’s not just a one time thing when you place faith in Jesus Christ, but it’s living a life of repentance. Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, turning from walking in darkness to walking in the light and having life. And the second part we talked about, truly following Jesus is not just living a life of repentance, but it’s taking time to know his voice.
Are you able to discern the whisper when God talks to you? Do you take time away from all the noise in the world? Are you spending time with him day by day so that when you come to really strategic points in your life when there’s a major decision, you know what his voice is. It’s not going to be in the roar or in the shaking or the wind. It’s always going to be still, simple and quiet like a whisper.
The next question Are you willing to pay the price of truly following Jesus? Have you considered the cost? Whatever it is, have you changed your priorities to truly following follow Jesus? Has there been a real change in your life that people say, wow, they live differently. What is it about them?
So that you have the opportunity to say, the difference is that I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And lastly, have you made a covenant with Jesus? And not just a contract. You can’t just dabble your feet in the water. You can’t just let your legs dangle in.
Jesus wants you to dive into a covenant relationship with him where you know that you’ll never change your mind because you know he will never change his. I don’t know where God is speaking to you today about all these things. We all have a way to improve in any of these areas. It’s called sanctification. We become more and more like Jesus.
So if you feel like you can improve in an area, ask God to show you. What do I need to do to improve there? Maybe it’s reading your Bible every day. Maybe it’s committing to just some quiet time when you’re actually going to turn off the radio in the car. Or maybe you’re going to Listen to scripture, you’re going to make some choice to learn to know his voice better.
Or maybe you need to say, lord, I really don’t know what your priorities are. I’ve just been doing my own thing, you know, Ask him, because he promised that he will show you. However God is dealing with you today, we’re going to have a time of singing. We’re going to ask that everyone stands. But if you just want to stand and pray, that’s fine.
You may want to sing whatever. And I do want to point out if you’re not certain about whether you truly have a following relationship. Jesus Christ. There’s a brochure called what is the gospel that you can pick up as you leave today? Or maybe you know someone that needs to hear this and you don’t know how to share the gospel with them.
You can pick this up and you can go and read that with them. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Convict our hearts of what change that we might need to make and empower us by your spirit to do that. If there’s anyone among us today, Father, that has not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, we pray that you would show that to them today, that they might come to saving faith.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Anybody that has a name tag, they’d be happy to talk more to you about this after church. Just please approach them. They would be happy to do it.
We’re going to stand as we sing. And then if you’ll remain standing all the way to the end of service when we are dismissed.