Sermon Tone Analysis

*Those who Would Follow Christ - Luke 9:57-62*

Pastor Oesterwind

December 28, 2008

 

*Introduction*:  Are you interested in being a vegetarian, but concerned that you might not be able to adjust?

Not to worry…you can become a flexitarian.

As vegetarianism gains in popularity and increases its market niche, a variation has developed.

The flexitarian is a person who eats primarily vegetables, but also indulges occasionally with meat.

The designation fits people like a 28-year-old woman who claimed that she usually ate vegetarian, but also enjoyed sausage.

She felt like a bad vegetarian because she was not strict enough or good enough.

She really liked vegetarian food but wasn’t 100 % committed.

/John Beukema, Western Springs, Illinois; source: "Are You a 'Flexitarian?"

MSNBC.com

(3-16-04)/

This reminds me of people who were once would-be followers of Christ but never lost their taste for the world.

People like this are confronted with hard teaching from Scripture on issues like separation from an ungodly world with its ungodly practices.

Instead of staying the course with Christ, they veer off track because they are governed by their appetite for the world.

There are many would-be followers of Christ in our churches today; perhaps a few even in our midst this morning.

*Background*:  Jesus “steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9.51).

Jesus provides a pattern for all those who would follow after Him.

1.

He did not concern Himself with a world that was rejecting Him (9.57-58).

2.     He did not allow earthly ties to bind Him from accomplishing His Father’s purpose (9.59-60).

3.

He did not look back but instead set His face to go to Jerusalem, to the cross which was before Him (9.61-62).

*Text*:  “Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, ‘Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.’

And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’”

“Then He said to another, ‘Follow Me.’

But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’

Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.’”

“And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.’

But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

*Transition*:  There are no exceptions for a follower of Christ.

No ‘if onlys’ or negotiations at the foot of the cross.

Only total commitment.

The would-be followers in this passage all maintain an appetite for the here and now.

Many of us seek to satisfy an appetite for the world while attempting to follow Christ.

There is no middle road for the true follower of Christ.

Since Christ requires commitment from all followers, all must break from the world.

This morning we find three clear warnings for all who would follow Christ in the new year…

*/1.

/**/If we would follow Christ, we must separate from the world (9.57-58)./*

*Explanation*:  The moment that we decide to follow Christ, we will become increasingly marginalized by the world.

An ever-increasing appetite for a relationship with God greatly diminishes our appetite for the worldly things that once were.

“Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, ‘Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.’” (57)  Really?

What led this man to make such a statement?

We don’t know, but Jesus responds to Him… 

“Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’”

(58)  This response gets to the heart of the matter.

This man may have wanted what Jesus taught for a season of time.

Perhaps he desired knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

But Jesus offered something that might result in suffering or even death.

If we go where Jesus goes, we must be willing to face rejection.

We might have nowhere to lay our heads.

Jesus did not have a home in this world and yet He was the Son of Man.

If the man in this text would follow Jesus, he would have to live estranged from the world.

This man did not have the resolve to follow Christ because to do so meant rejection.

The choice to follow Christ is not easy, and it must be made thoroughly with total commitment.

*Illustration*:  A young boy loved to play marbles.

He regularly walked through his neighborhood with a pocketful of his best marbles, hoping to find opponents to play against.

One marble in particular, his special blue marble, had won him many matches.

During one walk he encountered a young girl who was eating a bag of chocolate candy.

Though the boy's first love was marbles, he had a weakness for chocolates.

As he stood there interacting with the young girl, his salivary glands and the rumbling in his stomach became uncontrollable, and he thought to himself, I have got to get my hands on those chocolates.

Concocting a plan, he asked the girl for an exchange:  all his marbles for all her chocolates.

She thought this fair.

He put his hand in his pocket, searching for the distinguishing cracks on the surface of his prized blue marble.

Once he identified the blue marble with his finger tip, he carefully pushed it to the bottom of his pocket and pulled out all the other marbles.

As he handed the marbles to the girl for the chocolate, the boy thought his plan was a success and turned to walk away.

As he began to eat the candy, he suddenly turned to the girl and asked, ‘Hey, did you give me all the chocolates?’

/Christopher L. Heuertz, Simple Spirituality (IVP, 2008), pp.

116-117; Samuel T. Kamaleson, "Mangoes and Marbles," Decision magazine (January 1978)/

*Application*:  The choice to follow Christ is not easy.

We want everything the kingdom of God has to offer.

We want to have a secure sense of God's presence, we want all our prayers to be answered, we want to ‘feel close’ to Jesus, we want to flourish in the riches of God's glory—we want it all.

But we are unwilling to give up everything in this world for it.

Many times there is a ‘blue marble’ in our lives that we seem unwilling to give up for Christ.

Until we can fully accept alienation from the world, our commitment to Christ will at best be limited.

It may even be a lie.

*Transition*:  So as we head into 2009, we should take heed to this warning:  If we would follow Christ, we must separate from the world.

But there is a second warning in our text…

*/2.

/**/If we would follow Christ, we must prioritize our commitments (9.59-60)./*

*Explanation*:  The moment we decide to follow Christ, we will prioritize discipleship above family commitment.

God always comes before family.

This is what Jesus means when he says, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14.26).

Instinctively, we don’t like this.

When the second would-be follower of Christ comes along in Luke 9, he seems to offer a reasonable excuse for delay:  “Then [Jesus] said to another, ‘Follow Me.’

But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’

(59).

Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.’” (60)  Jesus refuses to hear the man’s excuse even though it seems perfectly reasonable.

Is it not reasonable to honor your father by giving him a proper burial?

Jesus’ reply seems shocking, but it was designed to reveal to this would-be disciple the extent of commitment required.

Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”

(60a)  Literally dead people cannot bury other dead people.

So, Jesus meant something far different by His subjective use of the first reference to the dead.

Ephesians 2 states that before we came to Christ, we were dead in our trespasses and sins.

This does not mean we were not breathing.

It means we were spiritually dead, separate from God and unable to have His priorities.

Jesus told this man, “Let those who don’t have spiritual priorities (the dead) bury their own dead.”

I can’t think of a better excuse than the one this man offered.

Yet Jesus dismisses it.

Nothing and nobody should block or delay our path to Christ.

It does us no good to soften this statement and explain it away.

Jesus is clearly taking the emphasis off of family responsibilities and placing it on our overarching responsibility:  “You go and preach the kingdom of God.” (60b).

Luke 4:43 …[Jesus] said to them, “*/I must preach/* the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because */for this purpose/* I have been sent.”

Luke 24:44-47 [Jesus] said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.”