Follow Me

So this morning, we're going to be continuing on in Luke chapter 9. And we're going to talk about discipleship. What is discipleship? What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? What does it mean to follow him? And what we're going to find is that we have three accounts of men who say, I'll follow you, Jesus. I'll follow you. And each of them have their own stipulations or their own way of processing what it means to follow Jesus Christ. And in every instance, Jesus corrects them. and instructs them and says, no, it's not like you think it is. And that's what we're going to be getting into this morning. I want to start off by helping you to realize that words are cheap to us these days. We don't think before we speak. We're willing to say whatever is necessary to alleviate tension or awkwardness or to please the person we're talking to or to do what we think, to say what people want us to say. Words come easily to us.

We promise things that we haven't considered what it's going to require of us to fulfill them. Because we think we'll be able to renegotiate that, change that later. Or we don't consider it at all and we're not even aware of our word mattering. That the things that we say matter. And so I want to tell you a story from my own life from the very beginning as an example of this sort of thing happening. I've only ever been fired from one job in my life. I've had the benefit of being able to choose where I worked or to choose what I want to do from when I got a paper route when I was 12 or 13. I decided I wasn't going to do a paper route anymore. I decided I wasn't going to work at a dog kennel or a pig farm or at the mall store or at the tree company or wherever I've worked. And I've worked other jobs than that, but I've always been the one who was able to say, you know what, I don't want to do that anymore. Except for one time. Write a...

Right as Vanessa and I were about to get married down in Bloomington, which is where we lived at the time, we got engaged and so I decided, you know what, I'm not going to go back to Ivy Tech. I'd been there for one semester and I decided I need to get a job. I need to make some money. I need to get on with life because we're going to get married and I've got to provide, right? And so I get a job working for a man in the church down there. And my intention was to go to the pastor's college to be trained for ministry so that I could come and do what I'm doing now. And so I needed a job that was flexible, a job that would work with my schedule, and yet that provided enough opportunity to work so that I could support our family. And so I got this job working for another congregant down in the church down there, out on his farm, being basically a farmhand. And I remember sitting at his house for dinner.

right after we got engaged, and explaining to him my situation. I'm going to go to the pastor's college, and I'm going to be busy during the school year, but I can work full-time in the summer, and it's going to be a four-year process until I'm done with school, and I need a job. And he said, well, I need help. You come out here and work. But here's the condition. You have to work for four years. I'm not going to hire you unless you work all four years. The year before I start, you start your pastoral training program, All three years. Those are the terms of the engagement. Because he said, it's going to take me six months to a year to teach you how to do things the way I want them done. So effectively, I'm going to lose money on you for six months or a year. And I'm not willing to lose money for a year. And at the end of that, have you quit? And so the terms are, you're going to work for four years. And here's what I'll pay you. And I'll give you the flexibility you need when you get into school in a year. And I thought, that's great. What a good job. Fun. I get to work with my hands. I get to be outside. This is going to be great.

So I take the job, and I work, and we get married, and not long after we get married, we find out we're expecting. And so I get nervous. I get scared. Well, how am I going to take care? I've got a baby to take care of. They're expensive. How are we going to pay for this? What about insurance? What about the delivery? What about all the expenses of babies? I get worried and get nervous. And so what do I do? Well, I start looking for a new job, and I find a new job, a new job that pays 20% more than my current job for another man in the church.

Down there. And so what ends up happening is the farmer ends up talking to the painter. I work for the farmer. I'm going to go work for the painter. They end up talking when I'm not around. And the painter ends up telling the farmer, hey, I heard Dave's going to come work for me. He said he was going to be done working for you soon. And that was news to the farmer. And so he came up to me after church. You know, everyone's pleasant. Everything's happy. And he walked up to me and looked me right in the eye and he says, you're free to go work for the painter tomorrow. And he walked away.

And I was fired. And so what do you think my first feeling was? It wasn't shame. It should have been. I was angry. I was angry at the painter because he'd upset the way I was going to do things, the way I was going to thread the needle of changing jobs. But really what I was going to do was try to negotiate breaking my word because I didn't see any reason that... what I had said and committed myself to previously should have any bearing on my current situation. I thought, well, circumstances have changed and I now have to do something else. And you're just going to have to live with it. And to compound the issue further, I owed the farmer some money. I borrowed some money from him. And so it was just an awful, miserable situation. And so I went to work for the painter. And my relationship with the farmer was...

gone, essentially, other than me working off my debt on Saturdays. And so I did that for a week, and at the end of that week, I went out there for my first Saturday to work for him, to work off my debt that I owed him. And I worked all day, and he never said a word about what I owed him, about what I had done. And then, so at the end of the day, I went and I sat down with him at his kitchen table, and I said, I need to talk to you. What about? And I said, I'd like my job back. Now, the truth is, there was nothing in me.

nothing in me that wanted that job back. I did it simply because I had given my word to him. And there was no way for me to back away from what I had committed myself to by faith. And so I said, I want my job back. And he looked at me. And I'll tell you, I wanted him, everything in me wanted him to say, you know what, Dave? It's okay. I forgive you. I understand things happen. That probably is a better fit for you. Don't worry about it. That's what I wanted him to say. Because I didn't want to go back to work for him. I hated working for him. And so I said, I want my job back. And he looked at me and he said, do you really want your job back? And I bit my lip and I said, yes. If you'll have me, I want to fulfill my word and I want to do what I said I would do. And he took me back. And I worked for him until the day I moved up here to plant the church. And so I tell you that story to say,

Our words matter. The world doesn't think that our words matter, but our words do matter before God. What we say and what we commit ourselves to, God remembers. And we will give an account to him for everything we've said. And so we ought to be careful about what we say. We shouldn't be flippant in what we say. Because God's not going to go, oh, it's okay, don't worry. It really isn't that big of a deal. He sees everything and he knows everything. And so this morning we're going to look at what three different men said to Jesus Christ. All of them saying, I'll follow you. And Jesus corrects each one of them. Because they don't know what they're saying. And so the goal of the sermon this morning is for you and for me to understand what does it mean to follow Jesus Christ. We don't get to define that. Because Jesus did not let these men define what following him looked like. He told them, following me looks like this. And there's no negotiating it. And if you don't do it this way, it's called unfaithfulness. Following Jesus Christ is,

And being his disciple is serious business. And it's something that we ought to consider. Something we ought to think about. Something that we ought to process. It's not something we should commit ourselves to lightly or flippantly. Because we can't go back on our word without consequence. And God will not forget the things that we say. And so it's of the utmost importance that we're conscientious in what we say we will do. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? From Luke chapter 9. verses 57 through 62. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. 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. And he said to another, follow me. But he said, Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father. But he said to him, allow the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Before we get into the specifics of these men, I first want to acknowledge that a desire to follow Jesus Christ is a good thing. Don't hear in the sermon this morning the pastor says, We shouldn't follow Jesus Christ. That's absolutely not the case. If things are to end well with us, we must follow Jesus Christ. And so these men, each in their own way, demonstrate a good thing and that there's some desire in them to follow Jesus Christ. But Jesus does not take their desire as it is. He rebukes each one of their assumptions about what following him meant. To put it another way, your desire...

to do good things or right things doesn't please God. Having a good heart or good intentions isn't going to atone for sins on the day of judgment. You're not going to be able to stand there and say, well, I didn't mean for that to go that way. What we're told is that every man's going to come and he's going to stand before God and is going to give an account for his deeds, not his intentions, not his whoops, I'm sorry, or it didn't work the way I wanted it to. We're going to give an account for every thought, word, and deed, the things we do.

The things we say. And so the desire that these men have is a good desire, and yet it's insufficient. They're not going to be able to follow through unless they understand what they're getting into. I was having a conversation with a man recently, and he was telling me how a friend of his was, they were talking about preaching the gospel in church, what that should look like, how intense it should be or not, how much of, you know, what should. If we're ministering to the nations, if we're trying to minister to visitors, we're trying to bring people to faith in Jesus Christ, how do we do that? And so my friend is saying, you've got to tell them the gospel. You've got to tell them the whole thing. You have to tell them about the judgment of God. You have to tell them about their sin. They can't come to Jesus Christ unless they know those things. And his friend says to him, we have to water it down. We have to scale it back.

So that they're not offended. So that they'll keep coming. Because if they don't come, how will they believe? But my buddy says, what are they going to believe? You're not telling them the truth. You're not telling them what it means to follow Jesus Christ. You're telling them that Jesus is a nice appendage, a nice addition, a nice upgrade to their life as it is. But that's not why Jesus died. He didn't die so that you could have a nicer, more comfortable life. here on earth, only to have it become even better when you go to glory. That is not what Jesus came to accomplish. He came to accomplish and to satisfy his father's judgment against sin. And it was a miserable, painful, awful road for him to walk. And his disciples are called to follow in his train and to walk that same path. We can't water down the gospel. We can't make it something less than it is, something less offensive, less abrasive.

We can't lower the bar so that people can get in because they're not getting in. So these men want to follow Jesus Christ. And he informs them. He rebukes them. He instructs them about what following him looks like. The first man comes to him and says, I'll follow you wherever you go. So is that a good commitment? Ought that to be the commitment that we have, that Christians have? Absolutely. Absolutely. It ought to be our heart's desire to follow our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. wherever he goes. But Jesus rebukes this man because he doesn't understand what he's saying. In the parallel account in Matthew, it's not just a man that we're talking about. It's a scribe. This man is a scribe. It says a scribe came to him and said, I'll follow you wherever you go. So what do you know about a scribe? What's a scribe do for a living? Well, a scribe is a man who is paid to transcribe, to write. It's a white-collar job.

if you will, which isn't to condemn white collar work, but it's different than being a fisherman, right? Fishermen understand weather and waves and outdoor bad temperatures kind of stuff in a way that a scribe wouldn't. And so this scribe comes to him and he says, I'll follow you wherever you go. And what does Jesus say to him? Jesus says, foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man, me, I have nowhere to lay my head. Now you have to wonder why, why did Jesus respond to him that way? Well, he responded to him that way because he was addressing this man's understanding of what following Jesus meant. And he addresses him right at the point of the hardship that he would face. He said, listen, it's not going to be the way you think it's going to be. The foxes and the birds have more comfort in this world than I do. And if you're to follow me, you're going to have less than the foxes and the birds of the air. They have a place to call home, but I have...

No place to lay my head. I have no home. If you remember back a couple of weeks, you remember that Jesus rebukes his disciples' ignorance about the establishment of his kingdom. There's all these miracles going on. There's all this amazement. All the crowds are growing. They're gathering. Everyone's going, this is so awesome. God finally has sent his Messiah, his Savior, and he's going to kick these Romans out and he's going to set everything as it should be. And which one of you, once all the dust settles, is going to be greatest in the kingdom? Is it going to be you or is it going to be me? And Jesus said to them, you don't know what you're talking about. The Son of Man is going to be handed over to the hands of men. He's going to be killed. You don't understand what's coming ahead of us as we go to Jerusalem. He's not going there on a military conquest to overthrow.

The powers that be. And so it would have made sense that not only the disciples, but the other people who were following him, including this scribe, would have shared this same misconception about what it meant to follow Jesus Christ. They would have thought, we're following our king into his city for him to establish his throne. And Jesus says to them, no, it's not like that. The birds of the air and the foxes of the field, they have it better than I will. They will have more comfort and more ease in this world than me. And if you're to follow me, that means you're going to lose all of that stuff. You've lived a soft life. You've lived a comfortable life. You've lived a life of ease. Following me means losing all that. You don't get to keep that stuff. This man, this scribe, he didn't understand. He didn't count the cost of following Jesus Christ. And that's what Jesus rebukes in him. In Luke 14, just a couple of chapters later, Jesus speaks in parable. And he says, which one of you?

when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and he's not able to finish, all who observe it will begin to ridicule him, saying this man began to build but was not able to finish. Is that what you want said about your faith in Jesus Christ? He didn't count the cost. And when the stakes got high, when the thorns started to poke, when the pressure went up, He wasn't able to finish. He wasn't faithful through to the end. Is that what you want said about you? Is that what you want to be true of you? It doesn't say what this man who went to build the house thought of himself. It says what other people said of him. And they spoke rightly to say this man was a fool because he started to build, but he didn't consider what it was going to take to complete it. This man who says, I'll follow you wherever you go, Lord. This man is precipitous. He does not know what he is saying. And so Jesus corrects him. He rebukes him.

He's like the young man who comes to Jesus and he says, I want to follow you. And Jesus says, okay, well, how about those Ten Commandments? How are you doing with those? And he says, I've kept all of those from my childhood on up. This man says, I haven't sinned. I've followed you. I've obeyed you. I've done what you said. And what's Jesus say to him? He says, okay, there's just one thing you lack. Just one thing. Take all that you have. and sell it and give to the poor. That young man, that rich young ruler, came to Jesus Christ not understanding what following him meant. I've done everything you've said, Lord. And Jesus effectively says, no, you haven't, because you won't do this one thing. And when that young man, that young ruler, understood what was actually required of him, it says that he was depressed and he went away. Once he understood the cost of following Jesus Christ, he decided against it. We don't read anything more about this man.

In our text, this man who says, I'll follow you wherever you go, and Jesus says, it's going to be a hard road, buddy. They don't read anything else about him. So it's reasonable to conclude that this man chose not to follow him. He had lived a comfortable, easy life to this point, and when Jesus says, following me is going to threaten that, the man said, I'm not willing to lose it. I'm not willing to give it up. Whether we're talking about unbelievers in our conversations with people about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, whether we're talking to unbelievers, or whether we're talking to our own children.

They must understand the cost that they will pay to follow Jesus Christ. They must understand it. We're misleading them. We're lying to them. If we don't tell them, there's going to be a cost. You see in my own life, here's been the cost. In earthly terms, here's what I've had to give up. Here's what I've gone without for the sake of Jesus Christ. And the Lord will require similar things of you. You will have to give up your life. He who loses his life for my sake, he will gain it. Then you come to the second man. And this man is different. This man is different in that Jesus speaks to him first. He goes to this man and he says, follow me. As he's walking and the crowds are around, he singles out a man and he says, you, you follow me. And you see this man has a desire to follow him. He says, Lord.

As if he says, I will, I want to, I can't. Can I please go bury my father first? His father's not dead yet. His father's old. And he wants to honor his father. He wants to take care of his father. He wants to care for him until he dies. And he says, can I have a rain check? I have the desire. I have the intention. I want to do it. But there's this other thing that I need to do first. What does Jesus say to him? He says something very difficult to him. He says, allow the dead to bury the dead. Allow the dead to bury the dead. So put yourself in this man's shoes. You're following along with Jesus Christ. And he looks you in the eye and he says, follow me. And you go, I will. Just let me do this other thing first that's a good thing. This man wanting to bury his father, wanting to see him through to the end of his life is an admirable, respectable desire. It's a good thing. It's not sinful for him to want to do it in and of itself. But Jesus says to him,

Let the dead bury the dead. It's now. It's me or it's him. It's life or it's death. Let the dead bury the dead. I have work for you. Go and proclaim the kingdom of God everywhere. This is your work. This is what following me looks like for this man. This man is given particular instruction about what following Jesus Christ looks like. The first man gets told, life's not going to be easy like you think it is. The second man gets told, you don't get to just be a hanger-on. Here's what you're to do. He calls him to the ministry. He calls this man to be a pastor. You understand? Go. Preach the gospel. This is the work that he gives him to do. And we see the conflict. You're going to preach the gospel. This is what Jesus has told me to do. I want to bury my father. I want to honor him. And Jesus says, let the dead bury the dead. You go do my work. Not every one of us is called to be a pastor, right?

But every one of us has specific callings on our life that have been placed there by Jesus Christ. And the problem with this man's request is not that he wants to honor his father. The problem is that he wants to delay. He wants to delay his discipleship. I'll get to it later. Once I get this other thing done, can I please finish it first? Jesus calls this man to a different work, a more important work. And his statement is to our ears, hard. It seems calloused and disinterested. But what we need to see in Jesus' response to this man is we need to see the extent, how far reaching the sovereignty of God is. If you were in this man's shoes and you had an aged father who was about to die and you loved him and you wanted to be with him and Jesus Christ says, leave him and follow me, your concern in your heart would be, what about my father? Who's going to take care of my father?

What's the harm in me waiting? If it's a couple of weeks or a couple of months, what's the harm in me waiting? The question you have to answer is this. If God calls you to do a particular work, do you think that he's not going to wrap up or take care of the loose ends that he's created? Do you think that this man's father would go without the provision that he needed if Jesus Christ called his son away? No, you don't. You can't. What kind of God would we serve who would call us away from care and provision? In one area, only to let it drop, let it fail. This man's desire for delay is the problem. Ask yourself this, what could be lost because of this man's delay? What's the cost? What's the price of his delay? And we go, I don't know what the cost is. I don't know what the price is. He wants to take care of his father. What's lost? And I say to you, what was his work? His work was to go and proclaim the gospel. How many souls? How many souls?

would it cost because he wouldn't trust God and leave his father? How many people would die in their sin because he had to take care of his dad? How often do we negotiate our unfaithfulness simply by putting off the work that Jesus has given to us today? I'll get to it tomorrow. I'll get to it later. Let me finish this other thing first. You hear kids say this stuff all the time. Mom says, you need to set the table for dinner. And what do the kids say? Can we finish our game first? Can I finish this chapter in my book? What is this child doing? This child's negotiating their unfaithfulness. Because how many times does that child forget to come and set the table when they're done? Isn't that not the common course of events? And don't you get frustrated as parents going, you're like, okay, I want to be gracious. God was gracious. I'm going to be gracious. Yes, honey, you can finish your game. And then you go on preparing dinner.

doing whatever you're doing. And 20 minutes later, you look back. The game's over. The book's over. The whatever's over. The kid's outside. They're off doing some playing Legos. Now they're doing something else. And then you're mad and you're going, didn't I say that you would do something? Wasn't I gracious in letting you finish your thing? And what I want you to see, just a small example, your children are negotiating unfaithfulness. They're negotiating their unfaithfulness. If your children want the ability to finish whatever they're doing, they have to prove faithfulness first. They have to learn that when you say, come set the table, what they're doing is now done, and they come set the table. And if they are faithful in that work, and they have demonstrated the faithfulness in small things, then the option comes, can I finish this work? Or can I finish this game?

Finish this. Then you have, as a parent, the opportunity to say, yes. Why? Because they have already demonstrated that they will follow you, that they will obey you, that they will be faithful. And this man does not have that privilege. He has not demonstrated faithfulness. And so Jesus calls him to faithfulness, and he calls him to it right now. You come now, follow me. I have work for you to do. But can I do this other thing first? No. No, you can't. You come now or you won't come at all. You remember when God called Abraham to take Isaac after 100 years of life with no children. Then he gives him a child, an heir, the one that was to be the fulfillment of the promise. And Isaac grows up and he gets to be 10, 12, 13 years old right in there. And then God says, take your son, your only son, The fulfillment of this promise that I've made to you, take him and kill him. What's Abraham do? Gets up early in the morning, loads up the donkeys with the wood and all the stuff that they need for sacrifice, and he goes to where the Lord calls him. And when they get close enough, he says to their attendants, he says, you guys stay here. My son and I, we're going to go worship. And then they're carrying the wood, and Isaac says to Abraham, I see the wood and I see the fire, but where's the sacrifice?

And what's Abraham say to him? What's he say to him? He says, the Lord will provide. And Isaac says, okay. And they go on. And they get up to the mountain. And you feel the tension. It's his only son. And he's ready to strike him down. And the Lord calls out from heaven, stop, Abraham. Here I am, Lord. Don't do it. Look over in the bush. And at that point, Abraham names the mountain the Lord will provide. Because that's what the Lord did. He provided at this mountain. And so you try to enter into this situation and you try to understand how in the world did Abraham make sense of doing this? How can you even wrap your brain around it? And in the New Testament it tells us that Abraham in Hebrews, that he believed God. And that he believed he would receive his son back by resurrection.

That he was willing to right now do what was required of him, what the Lord had told him to do, to the point of putting his own son to death because he believed God enough to say, if this is what the Lord has called me to do, he will provide my son back by resurrection. He will do a miracle. Abraham understood what faith was. He understood what obeying God, what following God looked like. And it was this faith that was reckoned to him as righteousness. Jesus tells this man, follow me. He says, let me bury my son. My father, rather. Jesus says, no, let the dead bury the dead. You, I have work for you. And you need to do it now. Then you come to the third man. Another also said, I will follow you, Lord. I'll follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home. Now, this man doesn't have, in his way of thinking, you compare him to the man who's got to bury his father, and you go, this man just wants a brief, very short,

Can I start tomorrow, boss? Let me go say goodbye. Let me go tell everyone what's going on. First, let me go home and say goodbye to those who are at home. His request seems reasonable. But again, Jesus equates this returning home with unfaithfulness. This is like Lot's wife. They're told, you've got to get out of the city. You've got to get out of the city because they're going to destroy this place. And they're waiting for you, so get a move on. And so Lot gathers up his family, his wife and his two daughters. and they're running out of the city. And what's Lot's wife do? She turns around and looks back. And what happens to her? Exactly what Jesus says in this passage. He says, those who, after putting their shoulder to the plow, and who turn around and look back, are unfit for the kingdom of God. She is struck down then, simply because she looked back. You think of the implications of Lot impregnating both of his daughters as a result of his wife's unfaithfulness? There's huge implications for her unfaithfulness.

Do you think he would have slept with his daughters if he still had a wife? Do you think his daughters would have had the concern that there's not going to be an heir if his wife hadn't died? Huge implications for seemingly such a small thing. She was running away. She was 98% of the way there and she looked back and that was it. And this man says the same thing. Can I just go back and say goodbye? And Jesus says, you're unfit because you're showing where your desire is, where your heart is. Your desire is for the things of this world more than for the kingdom of heaven. When I tell you to follow me, the first thing that happens is the conflict of interest. Jesus says, I tell you to follow me. And this man says, but can I go say goodbye first? That's really more important than following you. Seems like a small thing, a reasonable thing, a brief thing. And Jesus says, if that's your priority, you are unfit for my kingdom. This man put his earthly affairs before his commitment to following Jesus Christ.

He is the embodiment of the seed. In the parable of the sower, he is the embodiment of the seed that grew up and was choked out by the thorns. In Mark 4, verses 18 and 19, we read, The others are the ones on whom sin was sown among thorns. These are the ones who have heard the word. This man heard. He says, I want to follow you, but let me go home first. These are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, And the desire for other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. Do you feel how high the bar is yet? Do you feel it that Jesus isn't just like, oh yeah, if you want to come, just tag along and it's okay. And if you follow at a distance and that'll be fine too. And I would love if you came closer someday, but if you don't, that's all right. It's better for you to be back there than not at all. This is not how Jesus deals with any of these men.

In effect, he says to them, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except to me. Will you come now? Or do you have other things that you care about and that you love and that you prioritize above me? Because he who loves father or mother or brother or sister, he who want to bury their fathers, he who want to say goodbye to their family, he who loves those people more than me is not worthy of me. They will not follow me. Jesus gives the example to this man of plowing. He says, Has anyone in this room ever actually plowed a field? I suspect you have. You have plowed a field. Okay. How many of you have actually tilled a garden? It's very similar, but on a much smaller scale. Okay. All right. Now we've got some traction, okay? So I have a garden, and I've tilled my garden, and I've used Dan George's little tiller, and it's the most miserable contraption that I've ever seen. It's a chainsaw on a stick with little teeth on it.

And it weighs about seven pounds. So it's not built for tilling hard ground. And so I borrow this thing, and I get out there, and I'm going to till up my garden with it. And what's the temptation? It's a raised bed, 12 inches deep. What's my temptation with this little tiller? It's to go quickly. And if I go quickly with this little tiller, what's that mean? Well, it means I'm not going to till deep, right? I'm going to chew up the top two inches of dust, and that's going to be the end of it, right? Or I'm going to start good. Start well at the beginning, and I'm going to work that silly little thing down into the ground and push it and pull on it and do all the things you've got to do and go both directions and really pulverize the soil. But, you know, there's 500 square feet to my garden. What's going to happen by the time we get to the last 100 square feet? It's not going to be getting down 8 or 10 inches deep. I'm going to be looking at my clock, oh, man, I've been out here for how long? I'm tired. This is hard work. You know what? I think those tomatoes will grow just fine in this. I'm done.

No man after plowing and looking back, realizing the work, having set himself to do the work and then going, man, this is hard. Man, this is hard work and it's tedious work. That man's not fit to be a gardener. He's not fit to own land and cultivate it because he's looking back and he's looking at his clock and he's got sore shoulders and he's got all of these reasons and all of these excuses for why he can't do what God requires of him. And Jesus says that man, he's not fit. for the kingdom. Those who are fit for the kingdom will give themselves to the work of plowing and they won't look back. They won't watch their clock. They won't try to get out of the work. They won't do a half-hearted job. And the same is true about the gospel. You can't be a Christian if you're like, well, I'll get to it.

I'll do it when it makes sense. I'll do it when it's convenient. I'll do it when I've got time. I'll do it when I've got money. I'll do it when I'm older. I'll do it once I'm married. I'll do it once I have kids. I'll do it once my kids are out of the house. I'll do it some other time. No, you're not a Christian if that's how you think. You are negotiating your unfaithfulness. You don't have something that's more serious or more severe than these men did. Every one of us has circumstances in our life that are consuming. Whether that has to do with our marriages, with our homes, with our finances, with our health, with our children. All of us have that stuff. And I don't say this to diminish any of those things. Jesus didn't say, your dad doesn't matter. Effectively, what he said to that man is, I have work for you to do and I'll take care of your father. And so whatever the burdens are and the cares that you have in your life, I'm not telling you to ignore them. I'm telling you to see that those very things will keep you from the kingdom of God.

If they become your Lord, you cannot serve two masters. You'll love the one and you'll hate the other. And so when Jesus says to these men, follow me, or when they say to him, I want to follow you, he says, I will have no competition in the hearts of my people. I will be Lord or I will be nothing. Following me means every bit of your life, whatever it is that's going on, is interpreted and processed and pursued. in light of who God is and what he's called you to do and be faithful. You say, I try real hard. And I say, good. If you're a Christian and your heart's desire is to serve Jesus Christ and you find in yourself that you falter and that you fail and that you don't do what you should do and it grieves you, then I say, that's good. That's a good thing. Because that's the manure that you put in the garden so that it grows better.

The Christian life is not an easy life. The bar is not low. There is a cost to following Jesus Christ, and we don't get to determine what that is. Jesus didn't let these men follow in their way. He says, if you follow me, you'll give up your ease and your comfort. You'll give up your life. If you'll follow me, you'll give up your father. You won't see him die. You won't be there. If you'll follow me, you don't have time to go back and say goodbye. There's not time. You remember when Lot... left Sodom, there were members of his family who didn't come. His son-in-laws didn't come. They thought, nah, nah, we're not going to come. Talat snatches his wife and his two daughters and takes them. And God rained down judgment on that city. Can't we just wait a little bit? No, you can't wait a little bit. Because you don't know how much, you don't know when, we don't know what tomorrow holds. You can't wait.

You young men, you can't wait. You children, you cannot wait. You have the privilege of having a lot of years in front of you, most likely, of serving Jesus Christ. Some of us don't have that privilege. We don't have that much time. Some of us are older. You young people especially, you have the opportunity to serve Jesus Christ for decades upon decades, to grow, to follow him, to pursue him. And if you forsake his call, saying, I'll do it later, you believe a lie and you put your soul in danger. And it's that simple. We don't get to dictate the terms upon which we will relate to our maker. That's not our place. It's not our place to answer back to him and to say, why have you made me thus? If you wanted me to follow you, why did you give me this hardship? Couldn't my dad have passed away three months before you came to town so I wouldn't have this internal conflict? These aren't the terms under which we get to relate to God. He won't have it. Jesus says, follow me. And so you ought to count the cost.

of following Jesus Christ before you commit to it. Because it's a steep order and you're giving your word to something that's going to show up on the day of judgment. And so you ought to consider what it is you're committing yourself to. And you will end up committing yourself inevitably. Because the life that we live, we live by faith. If you give your life to Jesus Christ and you say, I will follow you wherever you go by faith. I understand that there's hardships and there's burdens and there's difficulties. I don't see with perfect clarity right now what they look like, but I know they will come. And when they come, I'm committed now and by faith will be then to follow you through them. If you understand that to be the nature of the commitment, then you've been prepared. The ground has been tilled in your heart. You're no longer the master of your life. You're no longer the Lord of what you get to spend your time doing. Jesus Christ is.

And as he sanctifies you and as he grows you and as he shows you, here's some untilled ground. Here's some work, an area that needs attention. By faith you say, I'll pull those weeds. Well, they have thorns. You're going to put gloves on and pull them. If you make that commitment, Satan's work will then be to get you to reconsider it. You must know this going forward. The commitment is not enough to stave off the temptations of the devil. In many ways, if you commit your life to Jesus Christ, you will see almost a direct correlation between your temptations to deny Jesus Christ intensifying. And if you're a Christian and you've been complacent and you've been kind of comfortable and kind of going along and I'm doing my best and I'm trying and all of a sudden you get stirred up and you go, it can't be this way anymore, you will immediately face temptation from Satan to stay where you're at. And you need to know that now so that when it happens, you're ready for it. Jesus is preparing these men and whoever else can hear.

for what discipleship looks like. If you're going to follow me, you need to know it's going to be hard. You need to know you're going to go without the comforts of this world. You need to not demand those things. And when God's gracious and provides those things for him, you ought to rejoice and be thankful for them, not covet them and protect them. Committing yourself to Jesus Christ, to following him, is an eternal commitment. And it's something that you do harm to your soul. when you look back and you reconsider. It will never benefit you to look back and second guess your commitment to Jesus Christ. It will only do harm to your soul. Another example of that would be marriage. When is it ever, ever helpful to a marriage for a husband or a wife to reconsider whether they should have gotten married? Is that ever helpful? That is never helpful. That is never helpful.

When I hear people having those conversations, what I know is that they're preparing their hearts to get divorced. That's what they're doing. Whether they realize it or not, they are preparing for unfaithfulness. They're looking at it. They're peeking at it. It's like staring up at the sun. If you just walked outside in blue skies and you just looked up at the sun, your eyes just couldn't handle it. And so you kind of come out and you kind of shade your eyes, you kind of look around, and you start to look at the horizon, and eventually your eyes have adjusted to the brightness of the sun. And the same thing happens with sin. You can't imagine the idea of it. You can't imagine getting close enough to it. And so you kind of shade your eyes, but you peek at it. And all of a sudden you become acclimated to it. You become acclimated to unfaithfulness. That's true of marriage. That's true of following Jesus Christ. That's true in your workplace.

Wherever you've given your word, when you start to look at it and go, well, maybe not. Maybe it would be better if... Or I'll only continue to do this if you are acclimating your heart to sin. You're preparing yourself for unfaithfulness. I don't want you to do that. I want you to see that when those temptations arise in your heart, they must be renounced. They must be cast away. They must be submitted to the cross of Jesus Christ because they are dangerous and they are destructive and they will... Kill you. Don't do it. You're a Christian and you've committed your life to Jesus Christ. Don't you look back. Don't you look back. Jesus Christ looks forward. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. And we are to be of the same stuff as he is. We don't look back. We look forward. Glory and blessing and privilege and honor and rest and comfort is ahead. It's not behind.

You didn't leave that stuff because if you had that stuff, you wouldn't have left it. And so if you've renounced the world and its lusts, I say you do not look back. Follow Jesus Christ. Wherever he leads, you follow him. And it will be worth it. You will receive your reward, but only if you follow him. If you don't follow him, you'll have no part in him. And he determines what following him looks like. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for your word. that lays us bare, that reveals the secrets of our hearts. And we pray, Father, I pray that you would have mercy on us. We don't deserve any of your kindness, any of your patience, any of your Son's blood. And yet you've sent him to this earth to die for sinners, undeserving, ungrateful sinners. We ask that you would be merciful to us for his namesake, that you would give us hearts of flesh, and that you would cause us to be

of one mind in our pursuit of you and of holiness. I pray that you would give us strength and wisdom and discernment as it relates to our temptations. Help us to see what's going on and what's at stake, Father. Protect us from believing the lies of Satan. And we pray, Father, that you would build your kingdom in us and through us, in our homes and with our neighbors. We pray, Father, that you would make us salt and light, that we would be a strength to one another. and that this place would be a refuge, a place of healing, a hospital for sick souls. We pray, Father, that you'd increase our love for you and that after committing our lives to you, you would help us to see what lies ahead, help us to forget what is behind, and to press on towards your kingdom and your righteousness. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.