Follow The Leader

Sun. Oct.17/93 Lk. 9:57-62

FOLLOW THE LEADER

- The Game as kids

- Picking a leader for our country

What We Need

• A leader like Moses

Who refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, but was willing to go with God.

• Army generals like Joshua

Who knew God and could pray and shout things to pass rather than blow them to pieces with atomic energy.

• A Food Administrator like Joseph

Who knew God and had the answer to Famine

• A Preacher like Peter,

Who would not be afraid to look people in the eye and say, "Repent or perish"

And denounce their personal as well as national sins.

• Fathers like the Prodigal Son had

Who will watch for their sons and welcome them back into their lives without any strings attached.

• Mothers like Hannah

Who would pray for a child that she might give him to God, rather than women who are delinquent mothers of delinquent

children.

• Children like Samuel

Who would talk to God in the night hours

• A God like Israel’s instead of the dollar god, the pleasure god,

the selfish god

• A Savior like Jesus

Who can and will save from the uttermost to the uttermost

WHAT MAKES A LEADER A LEADER ? ?

• Dwight D Eisenhower

Leadership: The art of getting someone

else to do something you want done because he wants

to do it.

• Southwestern Advocate

A leader is an ordinary person with extraordinary

determination

BUT WHAT SETS JESUS APART FROM ALL OTHER

LEADERS ? ?

- This whole chapter deals with the question of His leadership.

v. 1 -- 12 sent out

v. 9 -- Herod

v. 11 - People

v. 18 - Who do you say that I am

v. 35 - Confirmation from heaven

v. 38 - Father of the demon possessed son

v. 49 - Others using His name

v. 53 - Samaritan’s not following Him

- When we come to v. 57 these same words had been said before. ----- Ex.19:8

 His credentials by today’s standards do not make Him a leader

. He was a member of a minority race, who at that time were an oppressed people.

. His native countrymen were under the rule of the Romans.

. Taxes were oppressive.

. They had no political freedom.

. He seemingly did nothing about these conditions.

. He came from the low-class uncultured people.

. He was born of a peasant women.

. His father was a common laborer.

. He was uneducated.

. He had no academic degrees or diplomas.

. Poverty was His lot all of His life.

. He never owned a home of His own.

. Lk. 9:58 Foxes have . . . .

. He never married.

. He was isolated from men of power and influence.

. He never traveled 200 miles from the place he was born.

. His own band of followers were ragged, rugged, unpolished losers.

. He served other people all of His life, and received little thanks for what He did.

. His friends let Him down and one of them even betrayed Him.

. In the end He became the innocent victim of a massive injustice.

. Instead of becoming bitter, cynical, angry, negative or a furious revolutionary, Jesus willingly died on a cross to pay the

penalty for my rebellion against God.

. As He drew His last breath he felt forsaken by God.

. He had every reason to give up, but instead

He changed the whole course of history.

Charles Lamb:

If Alexander the Great, Charlemagne or Napoleon were to

come into the room, we would all stand up out of respect. If Jesus Christ walked in, we would fall on our faces in adoration.

.

He saw possibilities in people.

. Sick people were an opportunity to show the love of God

. A course and tough Peter was a diamond in the rough

. A cheap prostitute named Mary could learn real love.

. A impossible crooked tax collector like Zacchaeus could change.

. A hardened cynical criminal in his death throbs discovered life.

. A callused seen-it-all Roman commander declared truly this was the Son of God

- Who am I, what am I in the sight of His sovereignty and holiness?

- I am as much a loser as any of these that have gone before me.

- So often in my independence, ignorance & self-centerlines I end up on the rocks destroyed and lost.

- How I need guidance and leadership in my life

- One to show me what needs to be done and how to do it.

SO WHAT SET JESUS APART FROM OTHER LEADERS ?

L-E-A-D-E-R

L-oving

Because He has made the way at such cost.