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.

I cannot refuse the love of God. I must become a Christian.
Can you say that today? Is that burning in your heart? I must become a Christian.
Listen, if you understand that, not because I want to see if I want to become a Christian, that means my signing up so to speak is conditional.
I want to be a Christian as long as it’s smooth. Huh? I want to be a Christian.
As long as I have a place like little foxes have to sleep in and I’ll be a Christian and I want to be a Christian.
I wanna be a Christian.
As long as I have like a nest like a bird does I want, I’ll become a, I want to become a Christian.
If God makes me healthy, wealthy and wise, then I’ll become a Christian sign up today.
Sign up today and you can be rich also just become a Christian.
Oh, I want to become a Christian.
This is the gospel message that’s being preached in many parts of the world.
I don’t understand how I can travel internationally and wind up talking to someone or meeting some Christians or even non Christians.
And say when they ask me, oh, do you know this person? You’re from America? Do you know?
So, and so, no, I do not know. Oh, you don’t? Oh, they’re really big in this country.
You think most people listen? Oh, they absolutely, absolutely listen to them.
And I just cringe, that’s the picture of Christianity. Oh, if you just follow Jesus then you’ll be rich.
If you follow Jesus you’ll have everything you need and you’ll never get sick.
Well, who doesn’t want to be a Christian? But that’s not the gospel.
And in fact, it inoculates people against the truth. There. Are you offended?
You can take a deep breath and relax now because you made it, you made it through the roughest part today without understanding, we can have motives without understanding.
When I say Jesus, I want to follow you. What are we saying? No, no, no, it’s Jesus.
I must follow you. Didn’t Peter say it.
When Jesus said, listen in John chapter six, Jesus said to the disciples, will you also go away from me?
Will you leave me? Because many the Bible said, didn’t follow Jesus any longer.
And then Jesus turned to the 12 and he said, will you also go away and Peter and his, he’s, he’s got great moments of inspiration and great moments of perspiration.
Peter goes to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.
I love that statement of Peter’s and that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I must be a Christian.
I have to be, can I say this come hell or high water?
I must be a Christian comes storm or pleasant day. I must be a Christian.
Come peace on this earth or war. I must be a Christian. There’s no other place to go.
And my friend, you may not like what I’m proposing to you this morning. But what is your answer?
Do you have a book like Genesis to revelation, to read all the way through?
And to conclude, I must become a what I must become. There’s nothing else to become.
What are you gonna become? Hebrews chapter four verse 12.
The Bible says, for the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword piercing even to the division of the soul and the spirit of a man of the joints and of the marrow.
And is a discern of the thoughts and intents of the heart. God’s Bible, the word pierces our very hearts.
In 1st Corinthians 2 10, First Corinthians 2 10 says, but we know these things because God has revealed them to us by his Holy Spirit and his Holy Spirit searches out everything and shows us even the deep things of God.
Amazing. 3rdly, under this point, Jesus goes to our motives motives that are without appreciation as sincere as these three men will be.
By the end of our study, they failed to appreciate exactly who Jesus is.
Jesus says to them, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
Not this point that Jesus makes church.
Let’s be honest, you’ve read the Bible does not Jesus want this man to come into the kingdom.
Course, the Bible says that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to eternal life.
Listen, but does God beat people up to make them come into the kingdom? Don’t you think in Jesus’s heart?
If you could, you know, listen with a stethoscope listening very carefully behind that, that chest of his.
Don’t you think you would have maybe heard his heart saying? Come on, dude, you could make it.
Come on, dude, dude is Greek for the soul that I love.
Jesus is saying, come on man, open your eyes. You can do this count the cost.
I’m not offering you a mansion or a nest or a hole in the ground. I’m offering you eternal life.
Come on, dude, you can do this. That’s what his heart is probably crying out.
The man was exuberant about becoming a Christian.
You can hear that in his voice. You can see it in print.
But is his motive to follow Jesus?
The right motive I said earlier, we must never make it easy for someone to become a Christian, but equally so we must never make it hard for someone to become a Christian.
But we must be honest, those of us who are real Christians, we would admit honestly, it is a rough road to follow Jesus.
We will be mocked, ridiculed and attacked. And I’m just talking about people who live in our own house.
Not to mention the spiritual aspect of things being misunderstood.
I live a public life.
I understand that I’ll preach the word of God and I’ll say one thing and, and I know what’s in my heart and I know what comes out of my mouth because I’ll have to listen to the tape.
What did I say? Somebody writes me a note. I can’t believe you said that.
Then I rewind the tape. I didn’t say that. What did they hear you guys?
When I say something, it’s blue, it comes out and it goes through the air.
You realize the spiritual jamming and attack. It must happen when it lands in your ear.
I’ll say it’s blue and you’ll hear boo. I can’t believe you scared us like that. You did.
There’s a demonic power that’s against us.
It’s a lot easier to not be a Christian in a sense. Let’s be honest.
Let’s tell them the truth. Pastor I brought up my friend watch out.
I’m gonna tell you right now what your friend is not telling you. It’s hard to be a Christian.
Just read the Bible. It’s harder to be a nonbeliever, especially as you get near the end.
Yeah.
Well, we need to be careful as modern day Christians in which we live in and this time the gospel needs to be lived and presented like never before because you guys, there’s a lot of stuff out there in the name of Jesus.
That is nuts. And it’s not right easy believing.
Oh, just believe if you just believe in our love for someone, in our passion for someone, we will say, you know what you wanna accept Christ.
Uh Yes, you do. Hallelujah. They wanna accept Christ. Let’s pray right now.
Wait, wait, wait, I, I I guarantee you if you put out a worldwide newspaper saying, would you like to accept Christ?
The world would say sure. What’s the motive? What do they understand?
Are they thinking? Do they see that? Jesus says, wait a minute, you wanna follow me?
Just know this when you sign up for this, I don’t even have a place to lay my head at night.
Jesus is saying, which by the way, are you Christian this morning?
And you do have a place to lay your head tonight, aren’t we rich?
Well, let’s be honest, we’re rich even if we don’t have a place to lay our heads because the Lord has given us all that pertains to eternal life that makes us rich.
But if you have a house to lay down in tonight that makes us spoiled, spoiled.
Look at you, you’re spoiled, you got shoes on. You said I didn’t have shoes.
I’m wearing my flip flops. You’ve got flip flops on. You’re blessed. I’m blessed.
God has been so good to us.
Point number two going where Jesus goes, verses 59 to 60. Jesus goes to our priorities.
Now, I don’t know if I like this one. He goes to our priorities. Then he Jesus.
This is amazing to me. Listen, why Jesus says to some other guy, this is a different guy, follow me.
But the man said to Jesus, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.
And Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead.
But you go and preach the kingdom of God.
Now don’t run out of the building with this verse thinking man, what a mean guy, Jesus is that guy.
He didn’t even let the guy go home to bury his dad. How sad is that?
That’s not what it means. Listen carefully.
Jesus goes to our priorities and he’s gonna do that this morning in all of our lives, believer or non believer on the fence, maybe becoming a believer.
He’s gonna go to our priorities this morning and it’s soul searching. Priority.
Priority number one is this, Jesus goes to our priorities. Priority of one.
Then Jesus says to this man, whoever he is, it’s a different guy. Follow me.
Can you imagine how precious this is? You guys?
Jesus personally is inviting a man to come and to be a follower of him.
Now, the other guy came running up. I’ll follow you wherever you go. Lord.
That’s, that’s cool. Cool. Very cool. This man is different.
This guy is maybe watching, maybe looking, remember this is a big deal. They’re on their way.
They’re moving towards Jerusalem. Jesus is on the road and Jesus stops.
Listen, Jesus stops, imagine, put yourself into the picture, just paint yourself into this Rembrandt and Jesus stops and says, follow me, wait a minute, time out.
The last time, 3.5 years earlier, Jesus said to Matthew Levi. Follow me and Matthew, come on.
Matthew’s counting money. He was a rich guy. He was a turncoat. He was Jewish. Matthew Levy, Matthew Levi.
That was his name. He was not only a Jew, he was from the priestly line, but he’s a turncoat working for the Romans taxing his brothers and giving money to Rome.
And then Rome gave a bunch of money back for him to keep making Rome money. He’s a tax collector.
Matthew, the author of the gospel. Matthew Jesus said, follow me and Matthew left money, stacks of coins.
Imagine a picture of like a poker table and the guy’s got all the bucks stacked up around him.
And Jesus walks by and says, follow me and Matthew gets up and follows him.
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 James and John Fisherman mending nets. Jesus says, follow me.
They left the nets right in the middle. That’s like, what, what do you do?
Are you a computer programmer? Are you a mom? Are you, what are you, Jesus says?
Follow me. Does it mean that you leave your job?
Does it mean that you leave your kids means you take your heart out of your chest, so to speak and place it into the hands of God and say whatever I am, I’m following you.
Priority number one, Jesus says, follow me. That’s it.
You guys, there’s no greater definition to being a disciple. Oh I wanna sign up for a discipleship course.
OK. Here’s, here’s the course 101. Follow him. Well, how do I do that? Read the Bible? Watch this.
Yeah, but I need somebody to pray with me. Let’s pray. But I have questions that ask the questions.
See, we get caught up in our minds so often that we almost professionalize discipleship.
Now, I don’t know how you’re gonna take this good, bad or ugly. Listen, be careful.
I’m grateful for the church that I got saved in In 1977 cover Chael Costa Mesa did not have a discipleship program.
You know what happened? If you stood up, sat there came forward or not.
If you decided to follow Christ. That’s it. I’m gonna follow Jesus.
You got a Bible and they didn’t give you Bibles back in those days, you had to buy one.
You went and bought a Bible and you, you actually, nobody came by to pick you up.
Nobody called me and said, come on, come on, you gotta go, you gotta go.
Listen, I had to go, I got saved on June 20th, 1977.
On a Monday night, Greg Larry was preaching and the next day on a Tuesday night, I had to be there again.
And then a Wednesday night, Chuck Mister was speaking on Wednesday night. I had to be there again.
I had to be there again. I had to be there again just like you, you had to be there.
Why something happened? There was no discipleship program. You couldn’t get enough of Jesus.
You had to have more of them. He was it and only it.
And when you say I’ll follow you, Lord, you are implying of what Jesus is saying.
Come and follow me. One scholar wrote. It’s like saying to your boss.
I want to do the best job possible here at this job. What do I need to know?
And the boss replies, listen, follow me, think about that.
You may have a phd or a doctorate from Harvard.
When you get into that company or when you get into that hospital, you need to go to somebody who’s in charge and you need to ask them.
By the way, this is, this is free, by the way, this, I’m giving you some free professional counsel, go up to whoever is in charge.
Listen, I appreciate the job that I have here. I want to be the absolute best at this job here.
What do I need to know? What do I need to learn?
You go to your job tomorrow, you tell them that.
And by the way, as a Christian, you ought to be doing that anyway, I want to be the best in this job possible.
What do I need to know? And if the boss says really come and follow me, what can you expect?
I tell you what, you better get your pen out in a notepad.
Eyes big and say, oh God in heaven above, help me to grasp whatever he’s about to show me come and follow me.
Why you as you follow the boss, he’s going to say, well, you know what if you want, if you want to excel in this, then I always come over here and I always check that door right there and then I look to see if that’s flowing and if those things are warmed up and that temperatures reach that gauge.
And then these people over here that they’re sitting in a certain direction because of the product has to be.
Find out. That’s what Jesus does when he says come and follow me if you want to follow him, if you have to follow him, if you must, you’ll say, Lord, I follow Jesus says, follow me to this man.
What an incredible honor. What an amazing thing. Also, urgency.
Look at verse 59 part of verse 60 there, Jesus goes to our priorities in the sense of urgency.
But he, that is the man said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.
And Jesus said, let the dead bury their own dead.
Um If we just left it as that, it’s, I’m sorry. It’s kind of funny like this.
It’s not on the English side. We don’t get it in English.
But you know, it sounds like Jesus saying, oh your dad’s dead, huh? Come on, let’s go.
Just leave him there. He’s dead anyway. What’s he gonna do? He can’t do anything. He’s dead.
What are you gonna say? Goodbye? He’s dead. That’s not what it means.
The word here means that Jesus I’ll follow you someday.
Could be, my dad gets hit by a donkey or he dies of old age Someday.
My dad’s gonna die after I buried him. It could be five years from now.
It could be 50 years from now.
Whenever my dad’s dead and I bury him, I’ll come and follow you. That’s what the word means.
His, listen, his father was not dead in that culture.
If someone dies, you gotta bury them before sunset. The, the, the father’s not dead.
The man’s procrastinating. He loves the message, he loves Jesus. Oh boy, I’ll follow you.
But let me first wait a while.
I gotta, I gotta take care of family business and Jesus is not even telling him to live his family.
It’s a priority issue. Is it not this man by saying it with his actions?
Not necessarily by his words, he has declared watch the watch the contradiction.
Lord master ruler of my life, call all the shots, Jesus, you’re it, I’ll follow you anywhere, any time everywhere.
However, this condition applies, then you cannot call him Lord, you cannot call him master.
What is being done here is the exposure of an idol in the man’s life as noble as it may sound.
I’ve got to wait 10 2030 years until my father dies.
Then I’ll come and follow you my friend. Let me tell you this.
The gospel when it comes to your ears is never convenient. Let’s be honest. It’s never convenient.
See, well, Jack, when he says, let the dead bury the dead, Jesus said, let the dead bury the dead.
It is that is the man not dead. The father Jesus announces to us is spiritually dead.
Let the spiritually dead people bury the spiritually dead people. You my friend come and live.
That’s what Jesus is saying. By the way, you might think. Well, that’s still kind of harsh.
Listen, there’s only one way to get your father who is spiritually dead to be alive, spiritually.
And that’s for you to come to Christ and begin to pray.
Intercede and show your dad the way to eternal life.
You want your dad to live, you want your dad to experience eternal life, then be a Christian live like a Christian.
Speak like a Christian. Follow Jesus.
And people will say, you know what I want, what you have and your father eventually will ask you, I want what you have.
I think it took 20 years in my life Because my witness was so rotten.
It took 20 years for my dad to say I want what you have.
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, That sounds like 1776.
Now I came from a trip, came home from a trip from Moscow Russia in 1792.
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 him now.
Urgency 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 will continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
You know Bible prophecy. It’s a fascinating subject, especially when it relates to current events.
Now, you know, Pastor Jack can really dig in when it comes to prophecy and end times.
You can watch Pastor Jack as he and his