The radical reality of following Christ, Luke 9: 57-62

As we have been studying Luke’s gospel account of the life of Christ for this last year or so, it should have become apparent to those of you who are students of the Bible, that Jesus Christ was a radical revolutionary in the truest sense of the word.  In fact, it is born out in our verse by verse analysis, that Jesus is actually quite different than the popular description that many of us may have had fixed in our minds.  I am not referring to the way He looked, though our perception of His appearance is also probably a gross mischaracterization.  But I am referring specifically to His teaching.

The popular perception of Jesus teaching, or what is referred to as His gospel or doctrine, is  actually  at odds with what the scriptures tell us.  Popular opinion paints Jesus as a beatific hippy who with a well modulated voice speaks in measured tones about  peace and love.  That is the perception of most people today concerning Jesus.  But in actuality Jesus was a radical revolutionary.  And His message was jangling, not soothing.  His message very often was jarring, upsetting, and at the very least He was controversial if not downright offensive.

I preached a sermon a couple of few weeks ago from Luke which looked at the question “who do people say that I am?”  And we looked at several answers to that question.  But let’s further consider for a moment that question of who Jesus really was and what He actually taught in light of what the scriptures actually say. Not what we like to imagine Jesus was like, but what He really was like. Let’s look at a few examples of  some of His controversial, sometimes harsh teachings.  In Luke 4 Jesus preached His first message to the people in His hometown saying; ““Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.” He went on to say that the people of His hometown were like the Israelites of Elijah’s day who God brought a famine upon while He had mercy on a foreigner.  Then He said His old neighbors were like Israelites who were lepers, but healing was given to Naaman the Syrian.  The townspeople He grew up around tried to throw Him off a cliff after this statement, because they understood He was condemning them for not believing that He was the Messiah.

Then in Luke 5 Jesus made even more enemies – this time the most religious people in Israel, saying “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”  He was announcing that the religious Israelites could not enter the kingdom of God because they refused to confess they were sinners.  That sinners would enter before they would. That didn’t make Him too popular either.

Then in Luke 6 Jesus presented a sermon to a large crowd called the Sermon on the Mount and gave a list of characteristics of  a citizen of the kingdom of God that were a radical departure from what everyone believed was true about the nature of a believer.  For instance, Jesus said you were blessed if you were cursed.  Jesus said you were blessed if you were hated.  You were blessed if you mourned and were sad.  You were blessed if you were poor.  And all those characteristics of kingdom citizens are still contrary to popular Christian belief today.  The gospel of Jesus is radically different than the popular message you hear in most churches today on any given Sunday.  Instead people are taught that coming to Christ means that you become happy, you become successful, you become prosperous and you can become healed of any disease if you believe it hard enough.  But the gospel of having your cake and eating it too was never the message of Christ.

Jesus’ hard line message was so offensive to most people that in Luke 7 He added to the previous list of blessings, “Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”  To add more insult to injury it seems that sometimes Jesus deliberately chose to make His message hard to understand.  In Luke 8 He said to the disciples, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.”   Jesus even seemed to offend His own family.  Just after the previous statement, He was told that His mother and His brothers were waiting outside to see Him.  And He responded in a way that seemed to disavow His own family. ““My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”

This harsh, uncompromising message seemed to even be directed at people that appeared to come to Him looking for salvation.  In John 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus affirming that he recognized Jesus had come from God and had the power of God.  And yet Jesus tells Him that he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is born again.  And when Nicodemus questions this statement, Jesus basically rebuked Him for not understanding.

On another occasion, a ruler came to Jesus and asked Him how to gain eternal life, and you would think that Jesus would have gladly welcomed a wealthy official into His kingdom.  But Jesus response was to tell him to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor, and come and follow Him.  The ruler went away sorrowful.  And Jesus went on to say that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.  But the real point He was making was it was impossible for anyone, even rich people,  to enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus routinely called people who listened to His messages hypocrites.  He called some of them snakes and vipers.  He said about others that they were like their father the devil.  He told still more that they were a perverted and unbelieving generation.  He pronounced to the citizens of Capernaum where He was living at the time that the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah was going to come upon them if they did not repent. Jesus did not mince words, and yet what He had to say was often couched in metaphors or parables.  His message was difficult to understand, even for His closest disciples.  Jesus warned the multitudes that narrow was the way to the kingdom of God and few of them would find it.  The only solution that He gave to their dilemma was to forsake everything in life and follow Him completely and be obedient to His teaching.  And His teaching wasn’t a simple process of saying a prayer in a certain way and then you were good to go.  His message wasn’t  a list of 5 steps to the kingdom of God whereby you could just dutifully check off each one to gain entrance into the kingdom.  His message wasn’t that you just needed to believe that God existed.  His message of the need for repentance was given to people that already believed in the one true God and yet He said they were going to hell.  He rebuked people who already were moral, He rebuked people who already obeyed the ten commandments, who already were religious, who already prayed,  who already did charitable works, because He said that they had wicked hearts and wrong motives and were inherently sinful.

It must have seemed to the disciples that Jesus would eventually run off everyone that was attracted to Him.  In John 6 it says that the Jews were having trouble understanding what He meant when He said He was the bread of heaven that had come down to man.  But rather than make it easier, He made it harder.  He said, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  And as a result of that teaching, it says many of His disciples stopped following Him.  Jesus looked around at the 12 who were left and said, “are you going to leave as well?”

One thing that becomes apparent as we really study Jesus teaching is that He wasn’t sugar coating Christianity.  We are not going to understand every doctrine to our satisfaction.  We are not even going to like everything He taught.  There are going to be some difficult lessons if we follow Jesus.  But if we are to be true disciples, then we must believe His message, even if we don’t understand it, or even if we sometimes don’t like it. We must continue to follow Him, trusting Him, even when things aren’t what we expect them to be. And like Jesus, my job as a preacher is not to make it easier for people to enter into the kingdom of God, but to make it possible, by proclaiming the truth of the gospel, briars and all.

So the principles of true discipleship is what Luke is illustrating in this last section of chapter 9.  He is illustrating the barriers to true discipleship, and the cost of true discipleship.  It was a message close to Jesus heart then, and it is a message very pertinent to the church today.  It’s not an easy message for many of us to hear.  But if we are to be truly His disciples, then we have to trust Him and continue to follow Him even when the message is difficult to accept.  Because Jesus said that they that worship God must worship Him in truth.  There can be no compromise, no half way discipleship.

There are three men in this passage that were followers of Jesus, at least to some extent, whom Jesus called to true discipleship.  And we are going to look at them as three examples of would be disciples.  The first one is the man in vs. 57 who “said to Him, ‘I will follow You wherever You go.’”  On the surface, it seems like an admirable desire on the part of the man.  In most of our churches, we would quickly claim such a one as a believer and give him a job passing out brochures or something.

But Jesus isn’t so quick to rubber stamp this guy.  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.”  Jesus saw this man’s heart.  He knew the level of commitment of this man was nothing more than momentary enthusiasm.  This man was enthusiastic about following Christ, but he had not counted the cost of really being a true disciple.  Perhaps this man was attracted by the radicalness of Jesus, His revolutionary message.  Lots of people are attracted by a rebel, by a revolutionary, even when they don’t fully understand their message.  Or perhaps this man was attracted by the miracles that Jesus did, healing and providing food for the multitudes.  It must have seemed like a great, compassionate social work and he felt he would like to be a part of something like that.

Sometimes we see a great deal of enthusiasm for what people think that the gospel is, or what they think that the kingdom of God entails, but when they see the reality of the gospel, they quickly lose their enthusiasm.  And though Jesus’ answer to this man may seem harsh, even unencouraging, Jesus obviously feels that it is necessary to give this guy a sense of what being a disciple is going to cost.  Jesus says being a disciple is going to cost you some comforts, it’s going to cost you prosperity.  He is saying that discipleship requires sacrifice.  That’s not a popular message today.

This is simply an illustration of what Jesus had been teaching earlier in vs. 23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.”  Then in vs. 44, He said, ““Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.”  In  other words, Jesus is telling this guy, “we are not going to a concert buddy, we are going to a crucifixion.  Are you ready to go there as well?  If you are going to follow Me, then you need to understand that is where I am going.  I am going to die, and if you are going to follow Me, you too have to be prepared to die to the comforts and pleasures of this world.”  That’s not a message of  “come just as you are to worship Him”  and then leave just as you were.   Please understand the reality of what Jesus is teaching.  Forget what you want Jesus to be and learn what He declares that He is.  The question that needs to be asked today is would you continue to follow Jesus if it meant not having any earthly reward?  Would you follow Christ if it meant you must serve Him instead of being served by Him?  Would you follow Christ if it meant you will be rejected by the world, hated by the world, and to suffer in this world?  Being a disciple requires more than mere enthusiasm.  It requires a greater sacrifice than simply clapping your hands and singing songs. Being a true disciple requires a sacrifice of your life.

The second man provides another illustration of what is required in true discipleship. In this case, Jesus is the one who extends the invitation to follow Him in vs. 59.  “But he said, ‘Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.’” But Jesus said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”  Wow, another harsh statement by Christ.  How could He be so unfeeling when this man was grieving?

Well, first of all, it is necessary to understand that in this case the man’s father wasn’t yet dead.  In Jewish society, when a person died, they did not embalm them, but they buried them the same day.  It is very likely that what this man was saying was my father is old or sick, and when he dies, I will receive my inheritance.  After that, then I will follow you.  And that may be a true understanding of this situation.  But it is also possible that this is an attempt on the part of modern theologians and commentators to soften the blow of what Jesus seemed to be saying.

But what He is really saying is understood through the second half of the statement: “but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”  What Jesus is saying is that the world is comprised of the dead and dying.  And so the dead world can bury their dead.  That is all that the world has to offer.  A way that only ends in death.  But what the kingdom of God offers is life.  And if you want to be a citizen of the kingdom of God, if you want to be a disciple of the king of the kingdom of God, then you will be about the proclaiming the gospel that gives life.  If you recognize that people are dying then you will be about the business of proclaiming that Jesus came to bring life to a people who are dying.

See this man did not understand the urgency of the gospel.  People everywhere are dying and going to hell.  Heb. 9:27 says, “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.”  And every day, all around us people are dying without hope.  Those that are dead we can’t help.  But those that are dying we can offer salvation to.  That is the urgency of the gospel.  It’s like an old movie I saw recently about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  And the hospital was filled to overflowing with bodies from the wreckage.  There was blood and mayhem everywhere.  And the beleaguered hospital staff we separating the hundreds of victims as they were being brought in. Those that had fatal wounds were put over on one side, and those for whom there was still hope was put on the side of the doctors.  They had no time for the dead.  Those that were perishing were too many and  too urgently in need of help.

In Christianity today there is a dire lack of urgency.  Our kids aren’t living for the Lord, they may not even be saved, and we don’t sense the urgency of it.  Our relatives are dying without Christ and we don’t feel the urgency of it.  We think we will have time tomorrow. Right now I need to take a vacation.  Or I have some important work to do.  Or I don’t want to upset them.  Or let me take care of some important stuff I got on my plate Lord, and then I’ll  witness to that person in a few days or weeks.  But tomorrow never comes.  Because we don’t feel the urgency.  Perhaps somewhere in the back of our minds, in spite of what this preacher says, we don’t really believe that God will actually send people to a real, burning, tormenting hell for eternity.  We believe in some lesser form of God, who isn’t really just, who doesn’t really keep His word, and who won’t act in judgment upon the world.  We believe our own version of the gospel to our own peril and those of our loved ones.

There is a third man who would be a disciple.  But he too had an excuse.  Vs. 61, “Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.”  But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Once again, we see an almost disciple.  He knows there will be some cost to following Christ.  So he wants to have one more fling, one more party.  He not only doesn’t recognize the urgency of the gospel, but He also hasn’t really become sick of the sin that he is called to forsake.  He looks back in longing and thinks, I just wish I could stay a little longer. There are still things I want to enjoy, to try, to experience.

Jesus compares this man to a farmer who plows, but cannot plow a straight furrow because he looks back.  I remember my dad who grew up plowing behind a mule during the depression in North Carolina saying  that if you wanted to plow a straight furrow you had to pick out an object like a tree in the distance, and keep your eyes fixed on that tree.  If you looked back, you end up going off course.  And if you are going to follow Christ, you have to keep your gaze fixed on Jesus.  You can’t be looking back at the pleasures of the dying world you are supposed to be leaving.

That was the point of God turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.  Sodom and Gomorrah were going to be destroyed as an act of God’s judgment upon their sin.  But Lot’s wife liked some of the finer things about Sodom.  She looked back with longing on that city and God turned His wrath upon her, as a warning to us today.  We cannot love God and mammon.  We cannot serve two masters.

Hebrews 10:38 says, “BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH;
AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.”  Being a disciple requires that we trust in Christ, not just believe He exists.  And that trust means that we follow Him, no matter what the cost, no matter how great the sacrifice.  We trust Him because He said the reward cannot be compared to the cost. Rom 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Phil. 3:7, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”

I don’t know where you see yourself, if at all, in today’s illustrations.  Perhaps you have, in your enthusiasm for what you want discipleship to be, said “I will follow You.”  But something has stopped you from coming all the way.  When you consider what is really required of a disciple you realize that you haven’t been willing to let go of everything to follow Christ.  To count all the comforts and advantages of this world as loss for the sake of knowing Christ.

Or perhaps you are like the second man.  You are concerned about earthly things more than you are concerned about spiritual things.  Oh, you sing the songs, you proclaim your love for God, but you are consumed with the deadness of the world and you put off the urgency of the gospel.  I hope you recognize today that you need to repent of your lack of urgency to the message of  the gospel.

Or perhaps you are like the third man.  You know you need to follow the Lord completely, but you really aren’t ready to make a complete break with the world.  You still love some things in the world.  You try to follow, but you are weaving here and there because you keep looking back.  Jesus said if you look back you’re not fit for the kingdom of God.  That’s a harsh statement.  I didn’t say it, Jesus said it.  If you’re in that category today then you need to repent of the sin of looking back in fondness for the things of the world.

We are going to close with the hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross.”  And as we sing I want you to examine your hearts in light of what Christ demands of those that would be His disciples.  Such a great calling as this demands my soul, my life, my all.  Holding nothing back.  Not looking back.  But trusting and following Jesus with all my mind, all my strength and all my life.