John Piper, in his sermon below, touches upon the topic of following Jesus
Christ and the cost of doing so. It is an eye-opening sermon that is also
encouraging.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
---
The Radical Cost Of Following Jesus
by John Piper
(Luke 9:56b-62)
And they went on to another village. 57 As they were going along the road,
someone said to Him, "I will follow You wherever You go." 58 And Jesus
said
to him, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the
Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." 59 And He said to another,
"Follow
Me." But he said, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father." 60 But
He said to him, "Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go
and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God." 61 Another also said, "I will
follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home."
62
But Jesus said to him, "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and
looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
God is always doing more than we know. In every event in our life and in
the
life of this church and this city and this state and this country and this
world God is always doing 10,000 things that we do not know. The designs
and
the effects of every event from the fall of a bird, or the birth of a
baby,
or the death of a Senator, or the capturing of a sniper, or the storming
of
a Russian theater - the designs and effects of every event are 10,000
times
more than we know. 99.9% of Godīs specific purposes are hidden from our
eyes.
When he scattered the nations at the Tower of Babel he was doing more than
one thing. He was restraining evil by preserving diversity that would
function as check and balance in the human craving for power and fame and
wealth. But in the same act of judgment he was preserving and increasing
the
diversity that would become the many-colored mosaic of redemption. Evil
would be deflected by diversity in language and culture; and the glory of
Christ would be reflected by the diversity in language and culture. "Let
the
peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you" (Psalm 67:3).
All
the languages, all the cultures, all the colors - let them all praise you.
For you will ****ne all the more brightly in our eyes when we see you
reflected and praised by all the peoples!
This is the final Sunday of our fall Missions Focus. And God is doing more
in these days than anyone knows for the sake of the nations. His authority
and his love and his mission are having a tremendous effect. "All
authority
in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make
disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and
of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded
you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew
28:18-20).
All authority is mine. God make disciples. I will be with you. That banner
is flying over us, and there are untold thousands of effects being
unleashed.
An Invitation
In a few minutes, when I am finished speaking, I will invite many of you
to
come to the front to show some of those effects and to pray with me here,
and with Erik Hyatt downtown, about Godīs calling on your life in
missions.
"The harvest is plentiful," Jesus said, "but the laborers are few.
Therefore
beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest"
(Matthew 9:37-38). We have been doing that. And God is stirring in many
hearts.
I will tell you ahead of time whom I will be inviting to come: 1) those
who
are already missionaries and are here for a time, and those under
appointment and about to go; 2) those who believe that this is Godīs call
on
your life, whether soon or later; and 3) those in whom God has been
working,
it seems, unusually in recent weeks or months to loosen you from your
present situation to seriously consider going across a culture for the
glory
of Christ. Your not sure yet, but you have sensed, or will sense this
morning, some unusually strong desire or pointer to cross-cultural
missions.
Jesusīs Response to His Would-Be Followers
God is always doing more than one thing in everything he does. So letīs go
to Luke 9:56-62 to see what Jesus is doing in this unusual and shocking
series of encounters. Three would-be followers meet Jesus. And Jesus says
to
each of them something very hard and very sweet.
* In verse 57 to the man who says, "I will follow you wherever you
go,"
he says, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but
the
Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
* Then in verse 59 Jesus takes the initiative and calls another,
"Follow
me." The man responds, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father."
To
which Jesus replies in verse 60, "Allow the dead to bury their own dead;
but
as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God."
* Then a third candidate for disciple****p says in verse 61, "I will
follow you, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home."
To
this Jesus responds in verse 62, "No one, after putting his hand to the
plow
and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
More than one thing is going on here in each of these encounters. To see
that clearly the way Jesus intends it, you need to go back to verse 51 to
make sure that you feel the tension in the air. In verse 51 it says, "When
the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined [he set his
face] to go to Jerusalem."
"He Set His Face to Go to Jerusalem"
Now we know what Jerusalem meant for Jesus. He said to his apostles in
Luke
18:31-33, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is
written
about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be
delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated
and
spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third
day
he will rise." And then when he got to the city Luke 19:41-42 says, "When
he
drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, 'If you had known in
this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have
been
hidden from your eyes.ī"
So there is an ominous ring in Luke 9:51 that we need to hear when Jesus
says, "He set his face to go to Jerusalem." Then to make clear the
implications of going to Jerusalem Luke tells us what happened next and
why.
Verse 52: "[Jesus] 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 he was going to Jerusalem." This is a signal to
us:
if you join Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, you may not have a place to
stay.
You may not be popular. You may be rejected.
Now we are ready to see more clearly what is happening in our text, verses
56-62. Three times we read the word "follow" to describe what it means to
be
a disciple of Jesus. Verse 57, "I will follow you." Verse 59: "Follow me."
Verse 61: "I will follow you." The point in this phrase is that being a
disciple of Jesus, that is, being a Christian, is more than learning about
him; it includes following him where he goes. "Whoever does not bear his
own
cross and come after me cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27).
"Follow ME!" - "FOLLOW Me!"
Now we are ready to see that more than one thing is going on here. When
Jesus says, "Follow me," and says it in the context of going to Jerusalem
and having just been rejected in Samaria for going to Jerusalem, he is
clearly saying two things, not just one thing. He is saying: "Follow ME."
And he is saying "FOLLOW me." There is me, and there is my mission. There
is
a person, and there is a path. There is a sweetness, and there is
suffering.
There is Jesus, and there is Jerusalem.
This is the way missions has always been and the way it will always be.
When
Jesus said at the end of his life, "Go, make disciples of all nations!" he
wrapped that mission and that path and that suffering and that Jerusalem
in
his mighty and merciful self. First he said, "All authority in heaven and
on
earth is mine." And last he said, "I will be with you to the end of the
age." There is the "FOLLOW me!" (Go!) And there is the "Follow ME!" (I
will
be with you). There is the path to the nations through Jerusalem, and
there
is the person who will be with you, Jesus. So when you hear the words,
"Follow me," hear two things (at least!) not just one thing.
Now what was Jesus doing in responding the way he did to these three
would-be followers? No place to lay your head. Let the dead bury their
dead.
Put your hand on the plow and donīt look back. What was he doing? He was
teaching, and he was testing. He was teaching that the Calvary road
through
Jerusalem will be a very hard road, and will require sacrifices of home
and
family. And he was testing to see if he himself was the greatest treasure
of
their lives. They said, "Iīll follow YOU." And Jesus said, "Really? You
love
me, you treasure me that much? Hereīs what it will cost." So he is testing
how much they treasure the "you" in "I will follow you," by telling them
what the "follow" will cost.
So there are two things going then and now in this room and downtown.
First,
Jesus is offering himself for our fellow****p and friend****p and
partner****p
in missions. Just think of it. This is the Creator of the universe. The
King
of kings and Lord of lords. The one who upholds all things by the word of
his power. The one who is from everlasting to everlasting. Born of a
virgin
as the Holy One of God. Perfect in life. Triumphant over sin and death and
hell and all the demons you will ever meet. In him are hid all the
treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. This Jesus says to you, as you ponder the
possibility of missions, "Follow me." Not, "You go there while I stay at
Bethlehem." But, "I am going there. Follow me . . . I will be with you to
the close of the age . . . I will never leave you or forsake you."
John Patonīs Experience of This Promise
John Patonīs experience of this promise in the New Hebrides over a hundred
years ago is deeply moving. He was being pursued by hostile natives.
Being entirely at the mercy of such doubtful and vacillating friends, I,
though perplexed, felt it best to obey. I climbed into the tree and was
left
there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if
it
were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and
the
yells of the Savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe in the
arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me,
and
speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among
these chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I
told all my heart to Jesus. Alone, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my
God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel
again my Saviorīs spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellow****p.
If
thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight, in
the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will
not fail you then? (John G. Patton: Missionary to the New Hebredies, An
Autobiography Edited by His Brother [Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust,
1965, orig. 1889, 1891], p. 200)
A Treasure Test
Then the second thing that Jesus is doing in our text is to test you, to
see
if this is enough, to see if he is really your treasure, your joy, your
security, your hope, your friend in times of loneliness, your home, your
father and mother, your power to look straight ahead - to test you in all
these ways, he tells you what it will cost.
Donīt make these hard words more difficult than they are. He is not
saying,
"There will never be time when you have a bed and pillow and a roof." Heīs
not saying, "It will always be wrong to be at your parentīs funeral." He
is
not saying that one battle with fear that you might have made a mistake in
going to the mission field will make you unfit for future service.
Understand these hard sayings the way you understand Jesusī words to the
rich young ruler and his words to Zacchaeus. To the rich young ruler Jesus
said, It is going to cost you all your possessions to follow me: "Sell
what
you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven;
and
come, follow me" (Matthew 19:21). But when Jesus came into the house of
Zacchaeus, the little tax collector said, "Lord, the half [not 100%] of my
goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I
restore it fourfold." And Jesus responded with joy: "Today salvation has
come to this house." (Luke 19:8-9).
Jesus Knows Your Idols!
In other words, the point of all these tough words as Jesus interacts with
different people is not to create laws that all disciples or all
missionaries have to keep: Thou shalt give all your money! Thou shalt give
half your money! Thou shalt go without a bed! Thou shalt go without a
funeral for your dad! The point is that Jesus knows everyoneīs idol. Jesus
knows perfectly what is competing in your heart with affection for him. He
looks everyone of us in the face this morning and sees right to our heart.
Let him do that for you now. Donīt take offense. He does this to win us
for
himself. "Follow me!" is the goal. Being with Jesus is the goal. It wonīt
be
easy. But it will be good. There will be joy even if there is continual
sorrow (2 Corinthians 6:10 - "sorrowful but always rejoicing"). Because he
will be with us.
Attachment to Your Home
So he raises the issue in verse 58 about your attachment to your home:
"The
Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Will you follow him? What about
your home, your furniture, the security you enjoy there, your comforts in
the climate controlled year-round perfect atmosphere, your roach-free,
mouse-free, ant-free, totally automated kitchen, your new surround-sound
home entertainment center? Jesus says, Follow me. Am I more precious, more
satisfying than these?
Attachment to Your Family
He raises the question about our family in verse 60: "Let the dead to bury
their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of
God." Whom do you cherish more: Spiritually dead relatives, or the giver
of
life, Jesus Christ? The point is not that itīs never right for a
missionary
to come home for his dadīs funeral. The point is that it might be right
not
to, and the issue is how it serves the proclamation of the gospel, and how
it reveals your treasures. Who is first, Christ or family? The point here
is
that Jesus Christ is absolute and all other allegiances are relative.
There
will be a hundred choices you must make in missions - indeed in life -
that
have no simple biblical command to settle the issue. The issue will be: Do
you want Christ above all? Do you want to follow him more than anything?
The Danger of Indecisive Disciple****p
And he raises the question in verse 62 about fickle following. The danger
of
indecisive disciple****p. "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and
looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." You canīt plow a straight
furrow while looking back. You canīt serve Christ, that is, you canīt make
Christ look great, if you are always second-guessing the value of
following
him. Looking back means longing back. It means that we are not really sure
he is worth following, especially to Jerusalem. Divided hearts like that
are
not useful in displaying the worth of Christ.
Jesus Is Worthy!
But I want to close by saying, He is worthy! He is worth following, even
through Jerusalem to the cross and to the nations. Yes, he will die in
Jerusalem. But that is not bad news. Not anymore. That is our life. He
loved
us and gave himself for us. He didnīt say "Follow me to Jerusalem" because
he needed help with his redeeming work, but because if your are with him
you
will be saved, and not only will you be saved, you will be given a mission
that according to verse 60 is more precious than burying your father.
Namely, "Go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God in Christ Jesus."
If God is moving you at all to consider the possibility of missions in
your
future, know this: He is worthy. Following him will always mean more than
one thing. If it means for you the place of suffering and loneliness, he
will be there. "Follow me" means there is the path, and there is the
person;
there is the suffering, and there is the sweetness; there is the
Jerusalem,
and there is Jesus. Follow him.
|
