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 have the
air 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.
So we have three questions that we want to ask based on these
verses. Question number one.
Are you going to choose the comfort?
Or are you going to choose the cross?
In our life, we're sitting here. Are you going to choose Comfort
or we going to choose a cross is a congregation here going to
choose Comfort or are we going to choose the cross?
The first man here and verse 57, and I want to make note that
these are not Parables. This was something that actually
happened while Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem.
So these are not Parables. These are actual events that
happened in Matthew's account of this first, man.
In verse 57, Matthew describes the sky as being a scribe.
Scribes in those days were known to attach themselves to an older
gentleman that maybe a teacher that travels and the Scribe
would learn under these teachers and grow up and hope to create
some sort of stature with themselves and make themselves
known, kind of like what we see today, when younger men go to
work and study under a gospel preacher these days I'm kind of
the same thing. So this man came and says to
Jesus Lord, I will follow you wherever you go.
We'll look at Jesus's response to this guy.
He was expecting to make himself known by following Jesus.
No, Jesus says Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,
but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
This in this response that Jesus had, Jesus made it very clear
that Christianity is not a path to more Comforts to higher
status, or to have a life of Greater ease.
The road and following Jesus is not paved with self-advancement.
It actually starts with self-denial.
If we go back to verse 51 of Luke chapter 9, it says there.
Now it came to pass when the time had come for him to be
received up that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,
that's talking about Jesus. So Jesus was heading to
Jerusalem to the Cross to die on the cross.
Earlier in the chapter and verse 23, read that it is to take up
our cross and verse 23. It says then he said to them.
All if anyone desires to come after me let him deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
So today we have somewhat of a respect for the image of the
Cross and we have to understand, you know, that sometimes we wear
it around our neck or it's put up in our home or we see it on
buildings, but we have to understand the view that the
first century Christians. Saw the cross is being the
cross. Was a symbol of death.
It was used as a means of execution.
So we have to thank, you know, if we had, I'd be the kind of
the, the same example, as just putting an electric chair
around, our neck, or putting it up on our manual, or are seeing
someone on a building that that represents death.
So, we have to think that when Jesus said this to take up your
cross, the meaning he had and said to these people meant
something extremely significant to those people in those days.
So we have to die to our self. That is the initial invitation
of following Jesus. Everything, we talk about here
in these next. Few verses is not really, you
know what's not specifically for mature Christians, if we want to
call ourselves that this is basic initial stuff.
And what we choose to do when we follow Jesus, We choose the
cross over the Comforts of this world.
Let's look at some passages that call us away from the comfort of
this world and dying to ourselves.
In. Luke 10 verse 3, it says their
turn over there, go your way, behold I send you out as Lambs
Among Wolves, you know, a lamb doesn't go into middle of wolves
expecting to live. The lamb goes into the middle of
wolves expecting to die and that's what Jesus was doing.
doing just as Jesus was sending out the 70 men here telling them
you are going to be have a potential of dying for my cause
Further in the chapter of 10 and Luke and verses 25 through 27,
it says there and behold a certain lawyer stood up and
tested him saying teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life. He said to him what is written
in the law? What is your reading of it?
So he answered and said, You shall love the Lord, your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself
and directly after this, this leads into The parable of the
Good Samaritan. A story about loving, the least,
likely of people to love loving the people who sometimes it's
hard to love. Also, in Luke 11:42.
It says there, but woe to you Pharisees for.
You tithe mint and Andrew and all manner of herbs and passed
by Justice and the love of God, these you ought to have done
without leaving the others undone.
He's basically telling the religious leaders here that they
are following the religious practices that at that time, but
they still sit back and settle for Injustice around them and do
not recognize love of God. That is needed to show the
people around them. They were not showing the love
of God. Their heart was not in what they
were doing religiously. Basically, they were just going
through the motions. Also, in Luke 12 verses 15
through 21. It says there and he said to
them take heed and beware of covetousness for one's life.
Does not consist in the abundance of things.
He possesses, then he spoke a parable to them saying the
ground of a certain rich, man, yielded plentifully.
And he thought within himself saying, what shall I do since I
have no room to store my crops, so he said, I will do this.
I will pull down my Barns and I will build greater and there.
I will store all my crops and my goods.
And I will say to my Soul soul, you have many Goods laid up for
many years. Take your ease eat drink and be
merry. but God said to him, Fool this night, your soul will be
required of you, then who's Will those things, which you have
provided so, is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not
rich toward God? So how do we become rich towards
God? Further down in the chapter 2,
verses 32 says, do not fear Little Flock for it, is your
father's, good pleasure, to give you the kingdom, sell what you
have, and give alms provide yourselves money bags, which do
not grow old and treasures into heaven.
That does not fail where no Thief approaches nor moth
destroys for where your treasure is there.
Your heart will be also. So this is extremely clear to us
what it means to follow Jesus, to become a Christian to die to
ourselves, be willing to sell up.
Resist, possessions to give away.
One of our means to love our neighbor as ourself and to die
to self. You know there was some research
done recently about some Villages some remote villages in
the Himalayan Mountains and what they found there in these remote
Villages extreme poverty. They mentioned that.
Half of the children died before their 8th birthday.
I have three kids and I can't imagine.
They have those kind of odds stacked against us.
They were dying of preventable, diseases cuts that led to
infections that ended up taking over the entire body.
You know, they would drink a little bit of unclean water.
You know, they get some sort of disease from drinking unclean
water and it can create an entire outbreak.
One Village had an outbreak that over the course of two days,
killed, 60 people. It was reported, that one mother
had 14 children. but only two made it to adulthood Severe
poverty. And on top of that.
They mentioned that men from the valley floor.
Would come up to these Villages and offer, young girls, a good
paying job in the city. Trafficking of children.
Terrible. Absolutely.
Terrible stuff. That was going on.
Can we imagine if that was our own daughters?
How we would handle that situation?
If we were going through this, do you think that we would not
have a change on our perspectives in life?
So how can we read that? We need to love our neighbor as
ourselves when we hear about these things going on.
If we are caring for the poor, as we care about ourselves,
would not the world be changed. If we are not careful, we can
create a very comfortable life in our state of Christianity
Today here, turning a blind eye to what is really happening in
some parts of the world. You know, I get it, it's easy to
put our head in the sand about these things.
Sometimes, you know, we want to not really recognize that these
things happen in the world. We don't want to hear about it.
It's easy to turn the channel so you can easy to turn the radio
station when we don't want to hear about these things.
You know, we can sit in our hair conditioner and you know,
air-conditioned building today on our patented pews and when
we're done here, we'll get into our comfortable cars.
Drive to our comfortable homes, sit in our comfortable, easy
chairs or couches. Put our feet up, fill our
bellies with food that is in a refrigerator.
Cook on gas stoves fire up the barbecue sit down.
There are tables of plates and silverware and eat our food
which is mostly processed. Anyway, You know, tomorrow
morning we can wake up and pretend like we don't hear a
message like I'm trying to give today, you know, we can forget
about it, it's easy to do. I've done it.
We're doing it all the time. It's are comfortable.
Way of living that we have let ourselves be used to So we
cannot let conform Comfort Define Our Lives.
I don't want Comfort to Define my life.
Do not let that be the story of Our Lives.
Let's be encouraged when we choose to follow Christ.
It is a call that we must be willing to give up the Comforts
of this life to die to ourselves and to live for others.
So, are you going to choose the Comfort or you going to choose
the cross? Our second question.
We want to. look at Are you going to settle for maintenance?
Or are you going to sacrifice for the spread of the Gospel?
the second man here and Luke chapter 9, In verses 59 and 60.
It says, then he said Then he said to the other two, 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.
It is unknown. Whether this man's father was
already passed or was going to pass shortly, the scholars kind
of go back and forth on that, but this guy wanted to go back
and either spend a couple days with you know, final days with
his father or give him a A proper burial, taking care of
the things that need to be taken care of.
When there is a death of a family member, you know, this is
something that all we all would do this is all something that we
expect to do. It's somewhat of an obligation
to immediate family members to take care of the Affairs of
somebody who has passed. Unfortunately, I still have both
of my parents. Thankfully and but I know
there's some here who don't some may have lost one or both plant
parents. And I can say that.
I Philly fully don't understand the loss of a parent, but a lot
of you do but think about those feelings we you had when you
lost your parent, think about All the emotions that you went
through, and the urgency that you had to take care of the
Affairs of him of, whoever it was, you know, you got to get,
you got to get the funeral arrangements.
You got to get, you know, the life insurance worked out.
You got to get, take care of this.
You got to take care of that, whatever it may be.
There's a list of things that are need to be taken care of.
Now, could you imagine Jesus turning to you and saying let
the dead bury their own dead? But you go and preach the
kingdom of God. How would we react to that?
You know, you're here and you're on the fence about following
Jesus. I want to kind of explain, you
know, what God has done for us. Even if we are a Christian, we
need to listen. Sometimes we need to be reminded
what is God has done for us. So the good news of the kingdom
of God is this? We have a God who it rains, all
and created, all who loves us? The reason we are here right now
is because he has breathed life into us as humans.
You know, God could call in into it all because he is the one who
makes that decision But we have all sinned against God and we've
created a separation between us and God, we've all sinned in
different ways. If we die in this state that we
are in right now, but as state of Separation, then we will
spend eternity. Separated from God, we can hear
so many different ways of a multitude of religions, nowadays
of how to get back to God. You know, say a prayer so many
times, do these religious You know, examples of do these steps
and you can get back into good graces with God, or just believe
it in your heart. You know, the good news is that
we do not have to do anything to earn our way back to God, we
cannot earn our Salvation. There's not enough we can do in
this world to earn our way back to being in.
Good graces of God. We have a God who is merciful
and graceful, but God sent his son to us.
To this earth. And he lived a perfect life and
he had no sin. And Jesus chose to die.
Not for his sins because he had no sins.
So, if he chose to die for sins, whose sins that he died for, for
our sins. He chose to die for our sins, he
chose to pay the price for us. But not only that three days.
After his death, Jesus rose from the dead and had victory over
sin because of that sacrifice. We here can have them
forgiveness of our sins by believing repenting confessing
and being baptized into Christ. And being reconciled to God.
After that, we have an awesome privilege to be able to be
forgiven of our sins. Each time we mess up or slip,
you know, we have an opportunity to go to God in prayer and
convince confess our sins to God.
God, and he will forgive us every single time.
And once we get through this life, whether by death or by the
return of Jesus, we will be with God in eternity in heaven.
That is the greatest news in the world.
That is the good news of the Gospel.
The decisions we choose today can have an impact on where we
will be in eternity from now. That is a privilege.
The king. Has come to us to save us from
our sins in that is Jesus. So when we have to make that
news known to the entire Community, to this town and to
the world, Jesus told us to go and we need to do exactly that.
It has been said that the man who did that research in the
Himalayan Mountain Villages that when they asked if some of those
villagers, if they knew who Jesus was Their response was,
who is that? They had no idea.
I have no idea who Jesus is. This picture here.
And I'm going to do try to do justice in describing this
picture for some here. This is a picture of the
Himalayan mountains. The beauty that is there.
It's just breathtaking at the bottom of this valley floor.
It's green. You can see a couple of hikers
down here on the bottom. Midway up starts to Brown a
little bit where there's no growth of vegetation and then
above that, you have the snow-capped mountains with just
such a vertical face on these mountains and the blue sky
above. Now, these guys here in this
Valley are said to be at 12,000 feet elevation Could you imagine
being there and looking up another 15 plus thousand feet to
the peaks of these mountains? That is an awesome.
Awesome thought. The beauty of The Majestic,
Majesty of the Majestics of these mountains are just so
beautiful. In Romans 11 verse 20.
It says for since the creation of the world his invisible
attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things
that are made even his eternal power and godhead so that they
are without excuse. Also in Isaiah 6 and verse 3 it
says and one cried out to another and said holy holy holy
is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his
glory. We can read in these verses and
we can look at these mountains and we can see that there's
places on this Earth. That the, that the glory of God
is shown in his creation. People can look at these
mountains and say there has to be a Creator.
There has to be somebody who has created these things.
That, you know, there is a God. That's what Romans tells us.
Romans tells us there's no excuse for someone to recognize
that there is a God now think about this.
So if there's people in the Himalayan Mountains that or
anywhere in the world, who have not heard the name of Jesus, but
yet the Bible tells us that they can recognize that there's a
God. Why do they not recognize that?
Why'd you that I recognize this? You know, these mountains have
been been proclaiming God's glory for thousands of years.
Well, the privilege comes to us from the mountains.
Do not teach about Jesus mountains, teach about God, the
Creator. So it comes on us.
It's our responsibility as Christians to spread the gospel
about Jesus to teach those about Jesus.
That's not the mountains job, it's not the Landscapes job.
That's privilege. Is ours.
What an awesome awesome responsibility and a great
privilege. We get to do something that the
mountains cannot do and we get to Proclaim Jesus.
So it is estimated that there are 2 billion people.
Two billion that have little to no knowledge of God or Jesus in
this world right now to billion, that is a huge number.
That's about if my mind serves me correct.
That's about a quarter. I think there's almost seven
little over seven billion people on this Earth right now.
So how come 2,000 liters with all the technology we have?
The speed in which information is shared, how come we, they're
still two billion. People that have not heard about
God or Jesus. I think there's two reasons.
Of course, in these places, there's resistance to the
gospel. There are leaders of villages
that absolutely reject, anybody wanting to bring in the gospel
of Christianity. There's governments that are
against these places that don't let you bring in Christianity
because They have their own Gods, that they serve that they
don't want anything else in there.
But I think the other reason is as we have settled for our own
maintenance. You know, we have created a
picture of Christianity. We were we are content with the
state that we are in coming to three-time worship three times a
week. Singing, his Praises commuting
and all those things that we do without giving second thought to
those who may be in need of hearing the gospel.
This congregation here is supported for and worked for
many, many years. In many ways financially and we
also send Frank to the Philippines every single year,
and that's great. But why do we think it's only
one man's job? Why do we sit here sometimes?
And think that one guy can spread the gospel throughout the
world that, you know, do we get comfortable?
Just just giving are giving of our means, just once a week.
We think that we think that justifies us You know, there's
so much untapped potential in this congregation here that not
only to send people to the Philippines, but more
importantly to get the gospel out in this community in this
town but not that's not going to happen if we settle for our own
maintenance. So we have to get out of our
comfort zone. So this is this Mike, you know,
I was putting this together as a very convicting sermon, very
convicting makes you self-reflect pretty hard on
yourself and we might think it's too much for us to do or too
uncomfortable for you and I to do, but this is basic
discipleship, that Jesus called us to basic stuff.
I Converse 14:33. Says so likewise, whoever you
does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.
So if we're not willing to give up everything we have, Jesus
says, we can't be his disciple. That's scary stuff to think
about. In 1958.
My grandfather along with my grandmother and four children
left the Comforts of the United States, to travel overseas to
Africa, to help with the start of the work there in
establishing congregations and spreading of the Gospel there
along with a few other preachers.
My grandfather, decided to give up all the Comforts of this life
here in America to go live. In a hut basically with a dirt
floor with four kids and I couldn't imagine the
conversation maybe that went on with him and my grandmother on
deciding to go back to Africa to do this.
And in 1959, He was in a very terrible accident.
He was. On a Saturday night.
He was preparing for the next day.
For the Lord's day to work to go to worship.
He was filling up, fueling up to the vehicle for the next day and
honestly, husbands and Men. I think that is a great example
for us, that we can how we need to prepare our families for
worship on Sundays, you know, we need to prepare the day or the
night before and able to make it to where ever, we need to be to
be able to worship. You know, whether we would be
traveling or whatever we need to make preparation to be in a
certain place so we can worship with fellow Christians, make
those preparations filling up the car the night before you
know, whatever we do Sunday morning, making sure that we
have plenty of time to be at services on time when they
start. But when he was preparing or
filling up the fuel, he would take a lantern.
This is an actual picture of of an outhouse, an outbuilding that
they had on their property. And this this 55-gallon drum
here about three or four feet, high was full of the fuel.
And there's a valve on this drum And as he was going out in the
evening, he took that Lantern and he hung it on that shed out
there, which was looks like, maybe I don't know 15 to 20 feet
away and as he was fueling up the vehicle, you know, being out
in the open air. He didn't realize that the fumes
could go all the way to that Lantern and they did and they
caught fire. And those fumes came all the way
over to the car and to that barrel.
And that valve ended up sticking open on that Barrel.
And he got burned. He caught fire is what he says.
He tells you he caught fire. I can't remember how much
percentage of his body was burned, but he was in the
hospital for nine and a half weeks.
And the nurse told him the night, they brought him in that,
they didn't think he was going to live and because they think
didn't think he was going to live.
They didn't give him any treatment for that entire night.
Burned, as he was, they gave him zero treatment.
This is the this is the picture of him holding the shirt that he
was wearing during that time. I mean, they're it's barely
hanging on there together. The nurse told him after.
It was all said and done that. He was America.
That's what the nurse told him. In other words, God had a hand
in him, not dying that night. You know, he gave all he gave
everything he could and he almost lost his life for moving
overseas to Africa, to spread the gospel.
So do not fool ourselves into thinking that the mission of
spreading the gospel, does not come without a cost.
Not only that but living a life of following Christ has not come
without a cost as well. So are we going to settle for
maintenance? Or are we going to sacrifice for
the spread of the Gospel? Our third question.
Will your life be marked by an indecisive mind or undivided
heart? Back in Luke chapter 9.
The last man that Jesus runs up on and verse 61.
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.
This last guy wanted to follow Jesus.
But first, he wanted to go back home and say goodbye to his
family. You know, Jesus was telling him
and he's telling us as well, that if we're going to follow
him, we are to fix our eyes upon him and not look back.
You know, these are tough, tough things that Jesus is telling us
to do. I mean, he is, he is really
getting to the core of our heart.
Are we going to follow him? Are we going to give everything?
We have be willing to give everything away, turn our back
on on all that we've ever known to follow him.
So an intersect indecisive mind. You know, I think of this as all
of us have a tendency to think this way, you know, we can hear
this message and we can think to ourselves, man, I really need to
do something. You know, I need to do something
for Jesus. I need some for the congregation
you some for the church, you know, and then then a few days
go by and I still need to really need to do something week, goes
by a month, goes by and we're still thinking, man, what in the
world? Can I do to help the
congregation or to help the church?
Then a year goes by. By the time, the years of all
gone by we have done nothing. This is not the type of life
that Jesus called us to live. He wants us to live with an
undivided heart. Look at the language in Luke
chapter, 14 and verse 25. It says there now, great
multitudes went with him and he turned and said to them.
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother
wife and children brothers and sisters, yes, his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple. What in the world is at all
about? What?
Why would he tell us to? If we don't hate our family that
we can't be a disciple. Now we know we can read other
places in scripture. We were taught to love our
wives, love our children honor, our father and mother, you know,
that's not what Jesus was talking about here.
Jesus was saying, That when we choose to fix our eyes and give
our entire heart to Jesus and love him.
All other close relationships look like hate in comparison to
what our relationship should be to him.
So, Do we love him with everything?
We got. So, the key question really is,
where's our heart? Where's your heart is Jesus
enough for us? Do we treasure Jesus, the
automatic Matthew 13, verse 44, the parable of the hidden
treasure says there. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is
like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid and
for Joy, over it. He goes and sells all that he
has and buys that field You know, this, this this guy found
something in this field that he thought was more valuable than
everything that he had. This is the parable 22 verse
Parable, very short. You know that is and it says
that he joyfully sold all that he had to buy that field.
You know, that is a picture of him loving Jesus.
With all, he's got billing being, you know, for the
furtherance of the kingdom of God, that that that is, that is
a picture of the church and Jesus, you know, he is the one
who can save us, he's the Alpha and Omega the beginning, and the
end, our comforter, Our Redeemer, Our Savior, the bread
of life, good shepherd, our great high priest, the king of
King Kings, and the Lord of lords.
He's all these things. Things.
So the real question is, does your heart belonged to him?
Does your heart belong to Jesus? Because when it does these
questions that we've asked sort of seem inviting, don't they?
I think they're inviting when if we can really say that our heart
belongs to Jesus, you know, when we choose the cross over the
Comforts of this life, the life we have in Christ is far better
than all the Comforts of this world.
Yes, when we when we sacrifice, when we should we should
sacrifice for the work of the church and spread the gospel.
We don't want to waste our life. We don't want to make a few
short years here, count for eternity for nothing.
You know, we will speak spend eternity, lost or saved and
that's just determined on the decisions we make today we don't
want to get to the Judgment Day and stand before Jesus and have
Jesus asked us to ask us, you know, all those good intentions
that you had all those things that you wanted to do to spread
the gospel. Have you done them?
You know, I don't, I don't want to stand there and, and respond
to that. Well, I thought about doing
them, well, thinking about doing them and doing are two different
things. I think all of us here can say,
That. That we trust Jesus to save us
for eternity and if that is the case, then why can't we trust
him to lead us here in this life for just a little while?
You know, when we truly understand who Jesus is and what
he does for us, it is not dangerous to surrender to him on
the opposite. It is dangerous to not surrender
to him. We thank you for listening to
our podcast. Put on by the Church of Christ
at 22:15 plans. Road in Bakersfield, if you
would like any additional information or you would like to
receive a free Bible correspondence course by mail.
Please email us at info at True Church of Christ
Bakersfield.com. Our service times are on Sundays
at 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. please
make plans to join us. We would love for you to be our
honored guest