When Jesus calls us to follow Him, to be His disciples, Jesus did not call for any halfway measures. How many of us, after the holidays, or before summer season starts say we are going to diet, join a gym, and get healthy? With good intentions we jump right into. However, by day 3 of our diet, and or the second or third time to the gym, what happens? By the next month, the resolution to get fit and healthy becomes a thing of the past. Most gyms makes their money from absentee members.
We get motivated and inspired with sayings like “when the going gets tough, the tough gets goings.” The fact of the matter is for most of us, “when the going gets tough, we wimp out, go home, sit in our easy chair, break out the snacks and turn on the television.”
One of the 12 disciples, Peter, was one not to be undone. Jesus was telling Peter the night before He went to the cross:
Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat;
Well you know Simon Peter, he tends to speak before he thinks. Peter would hear none of this.
Luke 22:33 But he said to Him, “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!”
Big talk, but you know the story. Jesus, who knows the heart, replied back to Peter
Luke 22:34 And He said, “I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.”
The fact is, most of us are not unlike Peter. Today we are looking at False Starts. We start off with all the right and good intentions, but things happen? Right? Stuff comes up and we just don’t do the things we know we ought to be doing. We have a good beginnings but in a few weeks, a few months, perhaps for some, in a few years, we burn out and fall away from the commitments we have made. We are going to look at a few false starts from scriptures today.
Luke 9:57–62
Excuses, excuses. You have known people like that who always have an excuse for everything. They are people who cannot get the job done, but they are quite ready with an excuse as to why they fell short. But that’s not us. We can’t be talking about us. What we have are distractions (but not excuses). I believe Satan uses distraction as a way to move us further from following Jesus.
Normally, I would never ask you to get out your cell phones during worship, but for the next few seconds, if you have a cell phone take it out, and hold it up.
Now keeping holding it - - - did you know that statistics indicate –
- The average person checks their cell phone 110 times a day. In a 12 hour day, that’s 9 times per hour.
- 55% of cell phone users text while driving.
- 84% of cell phone users don’t believe they could go a day without their phone.
- 50% of teens admit to being addicted to their cell phones.
- Now, I want to give you a test ... Since you’ve been holding your phones – how many of you, unlocked your phone and checked you email, checked your text messages, perhaps some of you even checked Facebook while I stood up here talking about it? (no, I’m going to ask for a show of hands) Can we agree, we live in a distracted culture? [1]
From the passage, Jesus identifies and calls out 3 ways we’re distracted when it comes to following Him in discipleship. From the three examples we have three types of false starts:
1. The eager beaver.
2. The excuse maker.
3. The procrastinator.
Each of these have their own distraction. Before we look at each one, I want to but this whole passage into perspective, or into context, if you will.
Luke 9:57a As they were going along the road ...
Where were they going? After the transfiguration, Jesus begins His Journey to Jerusalem.
Luke 9:51 When the days were approaching for His ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem;
What awaited for Jesus in Jerusalem but rejection, suffering , and death? Who will follow Jesus if they knew what waits for them? We read about his journey in the chapters that follow. What happens next in chapter 10, immediately following our focal passage, Jesus sends out the 70, to preach, and to teach and to heal the sick. Here was the situation:
Luke 10:2 And He was saying to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
Notice here the prayer requested was not for the harvest, but for laborers. The kingdom of God was at hand, Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem. Where can there be found faithful and fully committed disciples? Well our first one was an eager beaver.
Luke 9:57 As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.”
We look at the parallel passage in Matthew 8:19, Matthew tells us this person was a Scribe, of all people. Perhaps he was a spiritual thrill seeker? Earlier at the beginning of this chapter in Luke, Jesus gave His disciple power over demons and the power to heal diseases. Perhaps he had seen the miracles, perhaps this person wanted that power too. You think that Jesus would be open to such a volunteer. What was Jesus’ reply?
Luke 9:58 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.”
Was this person willing to give up what others would call “the necessities of life” to follow Jesus? Would we follow Jesus if we did not know where our next meal is coming from? You see Jesus was not taking a “I will follow you anywhere you want” statement at face value. Jesus was not going to accept a flippant and frivolous decision. The call from Jesus is for us to consider ourselves as strangers and exiles in a foreign land. Consider many of the saints that have gone on before us.
Hebrews 11:13 All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
Jesus tells us to count the cost. More on this next week. When we say we will follow Jesus, are committed to go the whole way regardless of the cost?
20 years ago, when we were led to go to Indonesia on the mission field, Ellen and I both gave up good paying jobs for a very uncertain future. My father said he had prayed that perhaps a coupe of his sons would go into the ministry, but he quickly pointed out to me that he did not mean to go to a hostile nation overseas. We have a couple in our congregation with a grandson and family going to Uganda as a Bible translator. Are we willing for family members to go to places with an uncertain future? The decision to follow Jesus is not to be taken lightly. We must be ready to give a total commitment to go with no restrictions on where ever that may lead.
Luke 9:59a And He said to another, “Follow Me.”
“Follow me” was the same command Jesus gave Peter, Andrew, James and John. (Matthew 4:18-22) What did they do? They immediately dropped their fishing nets, left their boats, and James and John left their father, to follow Jesus, right then and there. How about this guy to whom Jesus called to “follow me?”?
Luke 9:59
And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.”
This guy was the excuse maker. Key word in this verse is that little word “but.” “But there is something I have to do first.” “But I left something undone that must be taken care of.” “But I have this project I must finish first.”
This guy is an excuse maker. There is always something else to do first. Now, to be fair, in the first century, for the Jew, there was not a more sacred duty than to bury your father. That came before reciting the Shema, for the Levite priest, it came before his priestly duties. The only exception according to the Tobit, was in the case of Nazarite vow and the duties of the High Priest.
But if this fellow’s father were actually dead, he would be already there taking care of it and not telling Jesus about it. In all likelihood, his father was old, and will die at some point in the future. Perhaps this fellow was waiting on his inheritance. It matter little, it interfered with the call of Jesus. Jesus called him, like others he called, but there was a “but” to his reply.
Notice he said “Lord, permit me.” “Me” came first. What I want and what I need comes first. Do we make excuses? You know we can come up with some real good excuses, even spiritually sounding excuses to keep us from doing the Lord’s work. “But I’m already doing good things” I’m helping out my neighbor. I may even ask them to come to church.” Doing good things do not count if the Lord is calling you to do something else. You are just making excuses.
Luke 9:60 But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”
Jesus said let the spiritually dead bury the physical dead. Don’t be busy doing what unbelievers can do. It was more urgent that this one be out proclaiming the kingdom of God.
Now for the procrastinator.
Luke 9:61 Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home.”
Here is another with good intentions. “I will follow but first …” Now, for those of us reading through our Bibles in a year, we remember a few months ago when reading through 1 Kings 19:19-20 where Elijah called for Elisha to follow him. Elisha asked to say goodbye to his folks first. I will not say that was different, but there was real urgency with Jesus. Remember what Jesus said a few verses later, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” (Luke 10:2). Jesus was heading to Jerusalem to die and it was quite urgent the Gospel gets out.
Used car salesmen knows this type of person all too well. If a potential buyer says he needs to go home and talk to the wife, or to think it over, that will be the last time that car salesman will ever see of him. I see the same thing at church. When there is a job that is needed, like a Sunday school class that needs to be taught, I often get the standard Baptist reply, “Let me go home and pray about it.” Often, that will be last I hear from that person. We can always find a reason to put off what we know we need to be doing. What does Jesus say?
Luke 9:62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
When Jesus talked about looking back, He was referring to an old Jewish proverb about looking back while you are plowing. What happens when a farmer, who is ploughing a field, keeps turning around to look at what he has just ploughed? Can you imagine what the furrows would look like? They would zig-zag across the field.
When Jesus talked about looking back, he is talking about the looking back the children of Israel did in the exodus, wishing they had never left Egypt. It was like Lot and his family when they were sent out of Sodom before God rained brimstone and fire and destroyed the city. The angel told them not to look back, and that is exactly what Lot’s wife did, she looked back at her good life in Sodom and she turned to a pillar of salt (Gen 19:17 and 26). Paul talks about this:
Philippians 3:13–14 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Do we look ahead at what God has for us? Or do we wish we had those things that we have given up for the cause of Christ?
The scripture do not tell us what happen to these three. We do not know if they ended up following Jesus or not. But do you know if you are wholeheartedly following Jesus or not? Jesus does not call for halfway followers. In Jesus’ message to the Laodiceans Jesus said:
Revelation 3:15–16 ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. 16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.
Are there any distractions that is keeping you from giving your total attention to the things of Jesus today? What excuse are we giving?
To be a disciple of Jesus calls for total commitment. What is your commitment to Jesus today?
[1] www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/a-costly-calling-michael-deutsch-sermon-on-following-jesus-237136
