Luke 9:51-62

Christianity today makes salvation seem like its easy. Many are ignorant of the cost and of who Jesus really is. There is no rebirth or new beginning. Making Jesus the Lord of their lives is a mystery to them.

It’s hard to lead your family to Christ. Have you tried?
You can witness, man, you can hit the streets, I preach and a crowd gathers around.
I remember being sick to my stomach coming home from a trip in 1992 1992.
That sounds like 17 76. Now I came from a trip, came home from a trip from Moscow Russia in 17 92.
And I said, dad, we were on the streets in Russia in front of Lenin’s tomb preaching the gospel in front 20 ft from Lenin’s tomb preaching the gospel.
And my dad was so mad at that. He got so angry. That’s ridiculous.
You spend that money and you go over there to tell the Russians that they can have eternal life.
That’s ridiculous. My dad was not a Christian and being a military man.
He did not want the Russians to find out that they could have eternal life.
He was mad at me.
But you know what, one week before he died, he said, tell me again about this Jesus of yours and he prayed and accept the Lord on the phone and died seven days later.
Hey I don’t care if it’s 70 years or seven minutes you gotta follow. Now, urgency.
Jesus is inviting this man to eternal life. Second Corinthians chapter two.
Second Corinthians 2 15 says our lives are a fragrance represented by Christ to God.
But this fragrance is perceived differently by those being saved and by those perishing.
In other words, look at you, look at me, we’re walking around and we have member of pig pen and, and uh peanuts cartoons member Pigpen.
Everywhere he goes. Anybody know Pigpen. Uh OK, remember where he goes?
The o the you can see the odor or the in the dust and the dirt.
Well, convert that into a good smell. And that’s the Christian.
We’re walking around with our blanket that it doesn’t matter.
We’re walking around in the, in the dust in the stink and all this stuff except instead of flies flying around us, there’s angels around us and we have this aroma of the fragrance of Christ.
But the Bible there in Second Corinthians chapter two is very, very accurate.
It says to those who are perishing, we are like the smell of death to those who are saved.
We are like life giving perfume. Have you ever heard of this? It’s pretty profound.
Birds of a feather. What flock? Yeah.
Spiritually the Lord says, what fellowship does a believer have with a nonbeliever? I mean, we work with nonbelievers.
We live with nonbelievers. We, we have to, but we don’t fellowship with them.
We don’t tell them our deepest darkest secrets of life and our desires and our goals they don’t understand.
Can you imagine going to a nonbeliever and saying, I wanna be more like Christ.
I mean, the guy will go out and get a hammer and nails and nail you to the house.
He doesn’t understand. OK, then they don’t get it. Urgency.
Jesus says, let the dead bury their own dead people that are spiritually dead and they don’t care.
So Jesus is not teaching disrespect and he’s not teaching anything but priority in life.
Yesterday. This is not in my notes. It’s just kind of fun. Yesterday.
I don’t usually go out of the house on Saturdays. I’m usually studying all day long.
I got ahead and Lisa said, can you go? She knows she’s so smart.
She’s looking how you doing in your study? Good. I, I’m almost done great. I’ve been praying for you. OK?
Super. So I’m studying then, you know, an hour later. Yeah. Are you done?
I think I’m done. I think I’m done enough good because you know what?
I want you to go to the store with me.
You guys women since the garden can be very dangerous.
She knows I can’t say no because I have my Bible open.
Will you go to the store with me?
Yes. Yes.
I don’t want to go.
But the Bible is like saying you gotta go, you gotta go minister to your wife.
Love your wife. You gotta go. Where are we going? Stein Mart and Albertsons. Praise the Lord.
And I go, we go and we’re in Stein Mart and we meet four people from church in Stein Mart.
And it’s so fun because watch what happens. This is Stein Mart first up Stein Mart.
And there’s, it’s pretty packed yesterday.
And by the way, as everyone’s shopping around, you know, Brenda, Pastor Jack Lisa. Lisa.
Hi, praise the Lord. God bless y’all. Check it out. People walking.
Hey, Pastor Jack Christians are loud people and people get really quiet and it’s, you would have thought that Stein Mart was the living room of our houses.
How you doing? Pretty much? See you tomorrow. God bless you all my granddaughter. Oh, pray Gray. Awesome.
So then we get in the car and we drive to Alberson’s and I saw you at Alberson’s, right.
We’re at Albertson’s. Hey, President God bless you in line and check out person, box person.
Hey, we wound up meeting seven people in Albertson’s and Albertson’s.
You know, people are, they are on a mission. But what are we?
It, it’s now the living room of our house. Hey, praise the Lord. How you doing? God bless you.
And people get really quiet. Can they do that publicly?
Can they just talk about God like that? It’s absolutely awesome. It’s absolutely beautiful.
The point that I’m making is this.
We talk like this and all of a sudden in a sense, the world shuts down and listens because they want what we have, they want the fellowship, they want the connection.
There’s a sense of urgency. I want that.
And then when you say Jesus, it’s like, oh, you can only have that through Jesus. Yes, that’s true.
And then necessity, Jesus says, but you go and preach the kingdom of God, that’s the answer.
Go and preach. I don’t want to spend much time on this other than to say this as Christians.
What are you? And I doing personally, God speaks this to me.
I know He speaks it to you, Jack, what are you doing personally? To either go or preach the kingdom?
That’s not even an option. If I call him Lord, then I am to be going and preaching the kingdom.
Now you might say, well, I can’t go. That’s fine.
Are you sending the preaching and the going of the gospel? The teams in France right now?
And some of you help them go. Awesome.
Personally, every single one of us should have helped them to go. Russia is coming up.
Every one of us. I don’t care my dear friend.
If it’s $1 that you give to help a team member, get to Russia or get to Germany, you gotta help them.
Are you a Christian? Yes. Is he your Lord? Yes.
Then he says, go where, wherever he says, whatever opportunity he brings and preach I don’t know how, then send, send somebody who does, huh?
Send somebody who does or go, hey, you don’t have to leave this nation any longer.
Go to Cal Poly, Pomona and preach Christ. It’s amazing. There’s people on that campus.
They don’t even know who Jesus is. Amazing necessity.
Third point Jesus goes to our devotions, 61 62 devotion to his authority.
And another also said, Lord, they all started out the same way I will follow you.
We’ve heard that before again, this man recognizes the greatness, the value of Jesus’s words and the need of the kingdom.
This man is verbally ascribing to Jesus. Lord, he’s ascribing his authority. Jesus.
I believe that you are the authority but his decision to act upon that declaration is altogether different.
The Bible says in revelation 19 verse six, that Jesus Christ is omnipotent.
Did you know that Jesus is omnipotent? All powerful. God is all powerful. Jesus is all knowing.
He’s all wisdom. Jesus Christ, the Bible says, is God revealed in flesh to mankind, the authority of Jesus Christ.
And the devotion that we should pay towards Him is ultimate and we are not to say Lord in word, but more in action.
Colossians 2 19, this is a great verse. Colossians 2 19 says for in Him, that is Christ.
Jesus dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, by the way, chew on that for a while, that’s the plurality of the singleness of God as Christians, we are monotheistic, we believe in one God.
Colossians 29 says there’s one God, but in Christ, Jesus, he represents and unfolds to us, the nature and the person of God for why it says that He is revealed to us the fullness of God bodily.
That is the word in a or physical sense.
When you looked at Jesus walking, you were looking at the very person of God in human skin.
John one verse one and 14 in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God.
Verse 14 goes on to say, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth.
Awesome. Secondly, under this point is leadership, Jesus goes to our devotions to challenge leadership, devotion to his leadership.
He says, this man says, let me first go and bid them farewell who were at my house?
He said, what’s wrong with that? There’s nothing wrong with that.
In Mark chapter 10 verse 29 the Bible says that Jesus answered and said assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters, or father or mother or wife or Children or lands that is country for my sake and for the gospels sake, who shall not receive 100 fold.
Now, in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and Children and lands or countries with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.
But many who are first will be last and the last shall be first. What is he saying?
That there is a life of devotion to the Lord that transcends even the closest relations that we have in blood.
You’re listening to Real Life with pastor Jack Hibbs.
You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series. Just go to Jack Hibbs dot com.
That’s Jack Hibbs dot com. And for now let’s get back to our teaching.
Once again, here’s pastor Jack, I don’t mean to offend anybody at all but my friend, listen, I pray this is true for all of us.
If you’re a Christian today, then you have deep spiritual fellowship with at least one other person on this planet.
You shouldn’t have more. It’s called in Greek. It is.
In fact, it’s, it’s where you come away with this thought.
If blood is thicker than water, a term used for family tightness and closeness, then spirit is thicker than blood.
Is it not true that for many of us who are Christians, those Christian friends of ours are closer to us than blood relatives?
How was, how can that be true? It’s by the spirit of God.
How does that happen by letting the Lord lead us in life?
And this man is declaring, I gotta go home first.
My priorities and my devotions and my, my focus is on them.
First church listen, it’s always, always, always God first family, second ministry, third and whatever else after that, God, first family ministry, you can’t love God, have a messed up family and be involved in ministry.
You love God, you take care of your family and then God out of that will use you in ministry.
Jesus is not contradicting that God first.
This man needs to start out with God first and he’s having a hard time with that leadership.
Exodus 20 verse three says, of course, you know this, we shall have no other gods before me.
And then third, we end with this devotion to his duty.
Jesus says in verse 62 no one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.
What an amazing statement. No one having put his hand to the plow.
Jesus’s point is this, don’t look back. If you’re gonna follow me, you can’t look back anymore.
You can’t look back at idols, you can’t look back at your old life.
You can’t look back at anything that would pull you off the course.
He’s not saying divorce yourself from your family. He’s not saying neglect your father.
He’s not saying that you can’t have a life in the sense of this is how I once was.
He’s saying, can I put it this way? Get over it, get beyond it.
Put it in its proper place and follow me. Why?
Look back in Philippians 3 13, Paul the Apostle gave that incredible statement just really a commentary in this verse in Paul’s life brethren.
He says, I do not count myself to have apprehended.
That is I have not finally finished the course which Jesus has gotten a hold of me on.
But this one thing I do, I forget those things that are behind me and I reach forward to those things that are ahead of me.
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Please quickly in closing, we know what this is like.
I want you to, I want you to associate yourself with something in your life and then use it as an illustration for your Christianity from this time onward.
What is it in your life? Think about it. What do you do that? You can’t mess up?
Um I’ve seen some women in this church who are incredible.
Um I don’t know what you call it but you, you, you what’s it called? Calligraphy? Amazing.
I can’t do that, but they’ve got a system and they got it down and it’s perfect how they do that.
My utmost respect there are, there are some of you I know there’s some of you who are pilots in here and commercial airline pilots and that’s very critical.
You imagine going down the runway Delta flight 492 and you’re clear to take off and the pilot’s going down and he wants to start looking at the other side of the window.
Can you imagine? Look a pretty fire truck? You don’t want that guy looking left or right?
You want his face glued to the windshield of that plane and they do that.
They’re not looking around. Maybe some of you are farmers.
I know that’s getting rare in this region. Everything’s being built on. But what if you are plowing?
How many of you mow your own lawns? Raise your hand.
If you care about mowing your lawn, you got to look across the yard and set a target.
Why? Cause I’m, I don’t know about you but I’m a freak about the lawn bean mode straight.
Yeah. And I got my lawnmower and I don’t look at the lawnmower.
I don’t look at the wheels.
I look across the yard at something and you start and you move toward it.
Jack. Don’t talk to me when I’m mowing.
And then here’s the thing.
Are you guys as sick as I am or is it just me? Is it me?
You get all the way across. I want to see how straight it is.
If I look to the left or to the right, my lawnmower goes off.
Jesus says, don’t be like that when you’re following me. Let’s follow Jesus. Yes, Lord. Let’s go follow you anywhere.
Ok, let’s go. Whoa, look at that you’ll crash, you’ll burn, you’ll get off.
Course Jesus is saying, I want you to count the cost.
It’s where the gospel needs to go. We follow him. Don’t look left or right.
Jesus will take us to the lost my friends, don’t look left or right.
He’s gonna take us to the brokenhearted. He’s gonna take us to those who are scared.
He’s going to take us to those who have no home.
He’s going to take us to those who are deceived because that’s where you’ll find Jesus and we’ll never get there with him.
If we look to the left or to the right father, we pray this morning, we dedicate our lives to you, Lord God.
There is in a sense, great terror when we ask you, Lord, but we must ask you, we have to ask you to please have your way in our lives.
Lord, please have your rule, your reign, your lordship in our lives.
Father, we pray in Jesus name that as Christians this morning.
As we look at the storm clouds gathering in the spirit realm. Colts are on the rise.
Christians are being dismantled because they don’t know the truth.
These are dark days, Father, we pray that you would lead us into an ever deepening filling of your spirit and an anointing Lord God for these hours in which we live in May.
We truly be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this morning, my friend, if you are not a Christian or if you’re not sure, listen carefully this morning, you need to say to him that you want your sins forgiven that Jesus, you understand, died on the cross for your sins that you can’t save yourself.
You can’t better yourself that this morning you throw yourself down at his feet and say, oh God in heaven, save me from my sins.
I believe you died on the cross and rose again from the dead. Jesus.
Be my Lord and Savior be real in my life. I want to follow you wherever you go.
Maybe this morning, the spirit of God is saying to your heart, you must follow me.
Don’t put it off, don’t delay. This is the moment you let him know.
Now, father bless this church galvanize it this week for what lies ahead, Lord as they go to their place, as they go, father to their jobs and into their homes and into their neighborhoods and to their places, father be upon them.
God may the world know that they’ve been with Jesus.
Father anoint them and may they enjoy the reality that it is the Lord God living your holy life through them and may they see it?
Lord bless these your people in Jesus name and all God’s people said amen pastor and bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on real life radio with his message called going where Jesus goes.
Thanks for being with us today.
You know this message today going where Jesus goes is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Gospel of Luke.
It’s a series on the book of Luke and the unveiling of Jesus Christ to this world.
And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Hey, are you struggling with the existence of God?
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