The Cost of Following Jesus (Luke 9:51-62)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

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This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

When the day drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

And he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him.

But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?

But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road someone said to him, 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.

And Jesus said to him, No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

So dear friends, follow, follow, follow.

No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Let's pray.

Well Lord our God, grant us grace to desire you with our whole heart, that desiring you we may seek you, and that seeking you we may find you.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So it's a basic principle in life and in leadership that saying yes to one thing comes at the cost of saying no to all other alternatives.

If one goal is the ultimate goal, then everything else needs to be counted as second place at best or otherwise left behind.

Our reading in Luke chapter 9 describes the cost of saying yes to following Jesus.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

The cost of saying yes to making the kingdom of God the ultimate goal of our lives.

When Jesus asks us to follow him, he's asking for something far more costly than 65 to 80 minutes of our time on a Sunday morning or a few additional volunteer hours.

He's inviting us, his invitation to follow him is an invitation to make him our ultimate, which means saying no to everything else in life as our ultimate concern.

Saying yes to follow me means the whole of our lives, inside and out, is defined by trust and obedience and submission to our Savior and friend Jesus.

This means that following Jesus is as costly as it gets.

Because saying yes to him means saying no to all expressions of our own self-interest and self-will.

That's why Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer says when Christ calls a man, he calls him come and die.

These are three of my least favorite sayings of Jesus, by the way.

Do I have permission to say that?

These are three of my least favorite sayings because they are hard and they make my life much harder and not easier.

They call me out, they even make me feel unsafe.

And they make me wonder if at the end of the day there's even a place left for me in the kingdom.

But the invitation to follow Jesus is real.

And if the kingdom of heaven hangs in the balance, then it's there is nothing so greater that demands our attention.

It's never been more important for us to count the cost.

Saying yes to following Jesus means saying no to anything and everything else that competes with him as the ultimate concern of our lives.

I think Luke 9 shows us that saying yes to Jesus means saying no.

Saying no to what's comfortable, saying no to what's crucial, and saying no to what's closest to us as our ultimate thing.

Saying yes to Jesus means saying no to what's comfortable to us.

Let's look at verse 57 together.

As they were going along the road, Jesus and his disciples, someone said to Jesus, I'll follow you wherever you go.

If you're there, Jesus, I'm there too.

And Jesus said to them, Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

So a couple of years ago, Rachel and I were truly blessed by a kind of once-in-a-lifetime family vacation on a luxury cruise.

And uh and we enjoyed it very, very much, and we enjoyed our company.

But we, in preparing for this cruise in the weeks that preceded it, we realized that our time on this cruise is going to overlap with Ash Wednesday, which for Christians like us who follow the liturgical calendar, Ash Wednesday is a very significant day.

It's one of the most solemn days in the Christian calendar, and it's a day where Christians are called to pray and to fast and to lament and acknowledge our sins and the great mercy of God.

So we decide what we want to do on this cruise is we want to take a little bit of time.

We're gonna take our prayer books and we're gonna take a little bit of uh little baggie of ashes, and we're gonna pray this prayer office together sitting on our balcony, which is what we did looking over this crystal blue Caribbean Sea.

Here we are with our prayer book with our little baggie of ashes, praying a confession, confessing our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our intemperate pursuit of worldly goods and comforts.

Lord have mercy upon us, for we have sinned against you.

So we finished the prayer service together.

We walk- I washed the ash off my forehead, and then I went to the buffet and stuffed my face.

But not without appreciating the irony.

So I'm not here to defend myself, and I'm not here to give a commentary on cruise ships, and I'm not here to roast you if you've ever been to a buffet.

Right now I just want to speak for myself and say that there's something about Jesus' words here that bring this weird cruise ship experience to my mind.

I do think that there's a real way for Christians to feast and to enjoy the good gifts that a generous Heavenly Father delights to give us, and we can enjoy them in such a way that it brings glory to God.

But what verses 57 and 58 draw our attention to right now is what motivates us to follow Jesus.

In saying yes to Jesus, do I expect a more comfortable life?

Do I expect a life of luxury, convenience, material gain, and self-indulgence, because now I'm on friendly terms with God.

See, it troubles me that some preachers seem to say exactly that.

Some preachers will say that following Jesus is the way to material gain, is to see your wealth increase, is to see convenience and comfort grow.

But friends, if we take verses 57 and 58 to heart, we start to realize that this teaching just doesn't square up with the cost of following Jesus.

The man in verse 57 says he wants to follow Jesus, but it seems that having a secure and comfortable place to rest his head is in the end more important to him.

So he doesn't take up the call.

And the tragedy here is that the desire for material comfort supersedes his desire to find his place in God's kingdom.

So we have to take care that our hearts don't chase after material goods and comforts as if they're the ultimate good, as if following Jesus is my ticket to a luxury cruise.

An ultimate yes to what's comfortable ultimately means a no to Jesus.

Saying yes to Jesus means saying no to what's comfortable as our ultimate.

It also means saying no to what's crucial to us.

There's this phrase I used pretty ruthlessly as a teenager, and the phrase was, I'll get around to it.

You know, mum would ask me to clean my room, and I'd say, Well, I'll get around to it.

That's my way of saying, it just doesn't really matter to me right now.

This PlayStation is what matters to me right now.

And it was a very strategic move, wasn't it?

Thank goodness I never do that anymore, right?

I'll get around to it as a way of saying what you're asking is not crucial to me.

And I think a lifetime of saying, I'll get around to it, says to the person making the ask that you're not important enough to matter to me.

To another Jesus said, Follow me, he gives the invitation to this person to follow him.

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

And Jesus says to him, Leave the dead to bury their own dead.

The New Living Translation says, Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead.

But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

So part of you wants to go, Jesus, don't you have a heart?

Or are Christians expected never to attend funerals?

Or are they supposed to just abandon loved ones in need?

There's a lot I could say here, but no matter what or which way you look at it, this is a big ask.

And Jesus asks are big asks, and follow me is the big ask.

And we shouldn't walk away thinking that Jesus has no compassion.

We know for a fact from the Gospels that Jesus overflows with compassion.

But we should make no mistake.

There is nothing more crucial, more important, more urgent, more serious than the call to follow Jesus.

For the disciple, yes, cannot come with a delay.

It cannot come with caveats.

We don't get around to following Jesus.

We're called to start following Jesus exactly where we are.

Commenting on Jesus' response here in verse 60, scholar and theologian R.

C.

Sproull writes, I don't think that Jesus was being insensitive.

He obviously saw that this man was procrastinating and did not understand the urgency of the mission that Jesus was on.

Jesus is showing by his words that what was happening, this mission and redemptive history, going to the cross in Jerusalem, was so urgent that it supersedes even the normal importance of the burial customs of our cultures.

We might want to say it supersedes the importance of all things we count as crucial in our lives.

Probably this man's father wasn't dead yet, otherwise, he'd be planning and attending the burial and not talking to Jesus.

Probably this man's father was in the last chapter of his life, and the family was waiting for his passing to come, but didn't know how long that would take.

This young man's response is probably his way of saying, I'll follow you, Jesus, but only once this season of my life, once this situation is over, without knowing how long that would take.

Jesus' response highlights the urgency of proclaiming the life of the kingdom.

And there is nothing more crucial than God's present redemptive work to bring life to the spiritually dead, new life in Jesus, which happens not after we deal with important life issues, but happens in their midst.

Jesus wants you and I to say yes to him in the midst of life's crucial challenges and hardships, not yes after they're resolved.

And perhaps we can acknowledge the way that life seems to work.

Once one crucial situation is dealt with, another urgent situation always has a way of taking its place, doesn't it?

I'll follow Jesus, but first let me graduate with honors.

That becomes, I'll follow you, Jesus, but once I settle down a little bit, once I start a family, and that becomes, I'll follow you, Jesus, but once I get past this hurdle at work, and that becomes, I'll follow you, Jesus, but once I'm retired and I have some time on my hands, and it's amazing how retirement seems to fill up your time, doesn't it?

Saying yes to following Jesus is a decision that we can only make in the present.

And it means saying no to delay, to urgency, and to all that we count most presently crucial to us as our ultimate.

Saying yes to Jesus means saying no to what's comfortable to us, no to what we count as crucial to us, and it means saying no to what we count as even closest to us.

Verse 61, another said, 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 plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

So does again, does Jesus just want Christians to abandon their families, leave them high and dry, take off without saying goodbye to those closest?

I don't think that that's the case, but I think we should pick up on what Jesus is pulling at.

He's pulling on the story that we read from 1 Kings chapter 19.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

Maybe it uh maybe Jesus' response reminded you of Elijah and Elisha here.

Elijah is coming off a really difficult season in his ministry.

He feels very low and very defeated.

And the Lord says, I've got work for you to do.

And one of the tasks he gives to Elijah is to appoint a successor in his prophetic ministry.

And that successor is Elisha.

So he meets Elisha at his home.

He's plowing the field, and he puts his cloak on him, which is a symbol to say, You're going to take up my ministry.

And Elisha left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.

Let me go home and say goodbye.

And he said to him, Go back again, for what have I done to you?

Which is kind of a cryptic answer, I suppose.

Another translation says, Go back, but don't forget what I've done to you.

Elijah does go back and he says goodbye to his family, but he returns to Elijah to take up this ministry, to take up this call, to follow after God's will for his life.

Elijah goes to say goodbye, but he doesn't forget how important this call is.

It supersedes even the things he counts closest to him.

Whereas it seems that this young man in Luke chapter 9 wants to go home to say goodbye, because it seems that home is still what's more important to him than God's call in Christ to follow him.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

This is a contrast.

Jesus gives an illustration of a plowman looking back, because a plowman can't plow straight lines if he's always looking behind him to see what's most desirable, to go and glance at what he counts closest to him.

He's going to be all over the place, and there can be no fruitful harvest from a plowman who doesn't keep his eye on the task at hand.

There can be no fruitful harvest for the kingdom from a laborer who spends his whole day wanting to be somewhere else.

Saying yes to Jesus means saying no to anything and everything as the ultimate concern of our lives, including what's comfortable and crucial and closest to us.

And all this might leave us wondering: is it even worth it to say yes to Jesus?

Because that's a big ask, isn't it?

I guess I want to leave us with this thought.

Psalm 16, the Lord Himself is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup.

You shall maintain my lot, you show me the path of life, in your presence is the fullness of joy, and at your right hand there is pleasure forevermore.

I want to suggest that what we count as comfortable and crucial and closest to us are good things, but they are not the ultimate things of our life.

They will not leave us satisfied and fulfilled.

We can only find that in the God whose image we are created in.

We can only find our rest in Him.

And what we stand to gain in following Jesus is nothing short than Jesus Himself.

The Lord Himself, who is the portion of our inheritance.

See, the cost of following Jesus is great.

There's no two ways about it.

But let's never forget that the greater cost of our redemption is not our decision to follow Jesus.

Luke reminds us of this in verse 51 and again in 53.

Luke says that Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem.

And this phrase hangs over this whole passage.

That phrase is Luke's shorthand for what will happen when Jesus goes to Jerusalem.

Jesus is going forward to give up his own life, to give up his own self on the cross, to pay the penalty for our sins and to reconcile us with our loving Heavenly Father because of his great love for us.

The cost of following Jesus is high, but for our sake, Jesus was committed to paying the greater cost of the cross at his own expense to win for us a place in his kingdom.

Yes, there is a place in the kingdom for you and I, for those who presently say yes to following Jesus, those who repent again and again of making anything else our ultimate concern, and those of us who follow the crucified and risen one to the fullness of joy in the kingdom to come, Jesus gave up of his own glory, his own comfort for our sake, so that we can know pleasure at his right hand forevermore, because there is no greater rest for our heart than to find our rest in Jesus.

So saying yes to Jesus means saying no to anything and everything else as the ultimate concern for our lives.

Let's follow him.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

We worship a generous God who calls us to follow him in giving willfully, cheerfully, and sacrificially.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.