There are many people in this world that wish to follow Christ, isn’t that true? How many people gathered here today wish to follow Christ? All of us here have the deep desire in our heart to follow our Lord and Savior. In fact, this desire was what motivated us to find a congregation where we begun to gather and this is all well and good. The problem that arises is that many begin to think that by regularly attending the services or events offered by the congregation they have done enough and that with this they serve and follow God. When we take the time to read and meditate in the scriptures, it is very obvious that we are all called to gather, but the sad reality is that this alone does not necessarily mean that we are following and serving God. Why do I say this? I say this because following Christ is very expensive, and not all are willing to pay the price. What price am I talking about? Let’s now turn to the scriptures that we will be using today, and let’s explore this theme.
Luke 9:57-62 - Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” 58And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” 59Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” 61And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” 62But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Something that is very clear in these verses at first glance is that these three men felt a desire in their heart to follow Jesus, but here we also find a very valuable lesson about the price that we will have to pay when we decide to follow Him. Let’s examine these verses a little closer with the purpose of discovering the price that we will have to pay when we decide to follow Jesus.
Here we find that the first man said to Jesus “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” Why did he say this? If we think about this for a moment, I think that all of us here will reach the same conclusion that the reason why he said this was because this man, just as all of us, had heard about the wisdom and teachings of the Lord, and appreciated all of the good that Jesus had done and represented. Aren’t those the same reasons that brought us to Him? Of course they are, we started to follow Him because in Him we found the peace that we longed for, in Him we found the rest that we needed, in Him we found genuine forgiveness and love. How many can say praise God? What occurred next is that just as the man in this store we say that we Hill follow Him, and we do this without realizing that there is a very high price that we Hill have to pay. Look at how this is something that is very well reflected in our Lord’s answer when He said ““Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head”. Tell the person next to you, there is a price to pay. As we can see, Jesus used himself here as the example. I want us to note very carefully that Jesus, the owner of everything that exists in this world; being the owner and creator of everything that exists in the universe; being the all powerful God, He did not have a place where He could rest. Why do we need to pat attention to this detail? We need to pay close attention to how the Lords answered because in His answer He warned this man, and warns us today, that to be his disciple there is a price to pay Let’s examine this a little closer to see if what I am saying makes any sense.
In this moment in time Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, He was fulfilling the mission that the Father had sent Him to accomplish. Now, the truth of it all is that when we accepted Christ and become His disciple, we can’t stop in the fact that we are saved. We can’t take refuge in this fact alone; we must work and do everything that is possible to expand God’s kingdom here on earth. Can you imagine what would have happened if Jesus had not taken the mission that the Father sent Him to do seriously? If this had been the case, then none of us would be here today.
We must imitate Christ at all times. Tell the person sitting next to you, imitate Jesus. As I said previously, Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, He was on His way to accomplish His mission. We are also on our way to Jerusalem. We are not on our way to the Jerusalem in the past, but we are on our way to the New Jerusalem. Look carefully at how the Lord tells us this in Revelations 3:12 when we read “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name”. How may here are on their way to that place? Without a doubt, all of us here want to reach that place of rest; we want to reach that place where there will be no more sufferings we all want to reach that place where we will be before the presence of the almighty God; but to get there we must pay a price.
Now, I want to make a brief pause and clarify something. I want it to be very clear that I am not saying or implying that salvation can be bought or earned through works or sacrifices. Man’s salvation is only by the mercy and grace of God. This is something that is very clearly stated in Ephesians 2:8-9 when we read “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not of works, lest anyone should boast”. Therefore, I want it to be very clear that the price that I am talking about is not a price to pay for our salvation, nor is it a condition to our salvation. Christ prepaid the complete price of our salvation with His sacrifice on the cross. But if that is not the case then, what price am I talking about? The price that I am talking about is the price that we will pay when we remain faithful to God. Simply put, the price that we will have to pay is to deny ourselves; in other words, deny those desires or impulses of the flesh that only serve one purpose, but that oftentimes provide us pleasure. Look carefully at what we find in Romans 8:6-8 when we read “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God”. Therefore, the first lesson to learn from our study today is that if we want to serve Him correctly, we have to deny ourselves. We must lead a life of holiness. Let’s now continue with our second lesson for today.
Continuing we read “Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” If we read this without meditating in what was happening, and in what our Lord represents, many will conclude that Jesus’ answer in this instance was a bit harsh. This answer can appear as very cold, an answer that does not take in mind the suffering or sadness that this man was experiencing. But the reality of it all is that this is not the case. I say this because we can not ignore the fact that our Lord sees what is in our heart. This is something very clearly stated in Proverbs 20:27 when we read “The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, Searching all the inner depths of his heart”. And also in Romans 8:27 when we read “Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God”. Thus by keeping this in mind we quickly realize that the answer that Jesus gave this man was neither cold nor harsh.
Jesus saw what was inside this man’s heart and saw that what this man was doing is he was using his father’s death as an excuse why he could not immediately responds to our Lord’s calling. What happened with this man in not uncommon, and it is something that happens to many. I say this because when the Lord enters out life, He calls us to be something different. Tell the person sitting next to you, you were called. But what happens is that many of us attempt to justify and rationalize our actions, because we are not willing to stop what we are doing. I am talking about things that may provide us with some sort of pleasure or that may elevate us to a higher social status, but that we very well know are things that displease God. Then, because we are not willing to leave these things behind, just as this man, we start providing excuses because we are not willing to stop what we are doing and follow Him without caring for anything else. But when these excuses begin to fill our mind, let’s remember what we find in Psalms 139:2-4 when we read “You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. 3You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. 4For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether”. Therefore the second lesson for today is that we have to stop making excuses, and we have to faithfully follow Him, at all times proclaiming His love, mercy and forgiveness to all that surround us. Tell the person sitting next to you, “go and preach the kingdom of God”. Let’s now continue to the third lesson.
Continuing we read “61And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” 62But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God”. As we can see this third man is very similar to the first. A man that said that he would follow Him, but again we see that he also used an excuse, and again we see that the answer provided by Jesus can be seen as something harsh. But knowing our Lord, that is to say, knowing His nature, His love, and His grace, we realize that just as with the case of the second man Jesus saw what was in his heart. This is why we can confidently deduce that what this man was doing here is that he was placing more importance on the things of this world that of that of God. Unfortunately this is a problem that persists within the people of God. The problem is that to please those that surround us or please a desire of the flesh, many compromise their faith and begin doing things that are against God’s will. But when these temptations reach us, we must remember very well what the Lord tells us in Luke 9:24-26 when we read “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. 25For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? 26For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels”. Allow me to explain the point that I am trying to get across in a different way.
Let’s reflect on the example that Jesus used here. How many have see how a field is plowed? I am sure that many of us here, if not all, have seen the final product of a well plowed field. The ground is divided and the trenches string one right next to the other. Now let’s ask ourselves, how was this done in this fashion? The answer is simple, the one that was doing the plowing was not looking back, and he maintained his sight on what he was doing. He focused his attention in plowing the filed in a straight line. What the Lord is telling us here is that our service to God must be the same. We can not be looking back because everyone that walks looking back will eventually stumble and fall. When we stop focusing on what we have ahead of us and we star looking back, we are providing the enemy an opportunity to enter our life again and snatch the vision that God has given us. We are affording our enemy the opportunity to deviate us from the path that God has chosen for us. We are affording our enemy the opportunity to accuse us of the things for which we have been forgiven. Let’s never forget the words of our God as we find in Isaiah 43:25 when we read “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins”. And it is for this same reason that the Lord let’s us know that we have to stop paying attention to what we have left behind, and we must focus on what we have ahead of us. Therefore, the third lesson for us today is that we have to keep our sight fixed on the path that God has chosen for us. Tell the person sitting next to you, fix your sight on the path. What path? The answer is simple and we find it in John 14:6 when we read “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”. Fix your sight on Jesús.
In conclusion. The overall lesson that our Lord left us here is that serving Him is not something that we can tale lightly. Let’s never forget that serving Him correctly is not done by just coming to the church services once a week; it is not the warming of a bench or chair and shouting out an occasional amen or halleluiah. To serve Him correctly we must do much more than that. To serve Him correctly a complete change has to take place in our life. It is as the apostle tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 when we read “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”. And once this happens, then we will be obligated to deny ourselves, as the flesh will pull us in one direction, but the Holy Spirit in another.
There are many within the body of Christ just like these three men. There are many that feel the need to serve Him, that have the best intentions of doing it, but that allow the things of this world to stop them. But let’s never forget that as faithful believers, we can not be looking back; we can not be concentrating in the things that we have left behind, but concentrate on the path that is ahead of us. Let’s never forget that once we accepted Jesus, we also accepted His calling. Christ wants us to serve Him correctly, He has called us to be by His side, He has called us to His service. The price that we will have to pay may appear a times to be very costly, but consider what you will receive in exchange.
