Heeding the Call (Moved to Microsoft Word, January 26, 2024 Sermon)
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship
Call to Worship
Leader: We are called to follow Jesus.
People: But following Jesus isn’t easy.
Leader: No. It will demand our dedication and our energy.
People: It will change our whole lives.
Leader: Come, all of you. Come and learn of the Lord Jesus.
People: Lord, we come, seeking your wisdom and your guidance. AMEN.
Sermon
Sermon
Hey, we’re so glad that you’ve joined us for worship this evening. Would you turn with me in your bibles to Luke 9:21-27? It’s customary for us at our weekly gatherings to publicly read the scripture. We do it, as Paul reminds Timothy, “hold to the public reading of scripture,” and we do it to put our attention on Jesus. We often relay to the entrance of a bride at a wedding, where everyone stands and turns their attention to the most beautiful thing in the room. We stand to recognize that the Holy Spirit is pointing us to Christ through all of scripture.
Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
Reader: This is the Word of the Lord:
Congregation: Thanks be to God.
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If we haven’t met, my name is Brandon, and again, we’re glad to be hosting you for Presbytery this weekend. For the better part of a year our church has been journeying through Mark’s gospel, reestablishing our church in the ministry of Jesus, hearing and heeding His call to be His disciples and make more disciples.
So you could say that this evening you’re going to get a little dose of discipleship, and this will be every part exhortation as much as it will be encouragement.
If you still have your Bibles open, open with me not to Mark, but Luke, Luke 9:21-27, and we’ll begin in verse 21 together. Luke 9:21-23
Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
Jesus has just been praying in private and He asks the disciples questions of His identity. It’s the “Who do you say I am?” line that we should be familiar with.
Peter says that Jesus is “God’s Messiah,” He is Israel’s Appointed King and the Redeemer of All Humanity, but his immediate response to that in verse 21 is a warning, to not utter a word about this to anyone.
What He does in verse 22 is interesting… He weds suffering with His Kingly reign — He will be despised, rejected, killed, and raised to life — and not once will He lose His identity as the Messiah.
What this does, is it prepares the disciples, it prepares us, as readers and followers of the way of Jesus, with the reality of the Kingdom of God, when we take up a life of allegiance of pursuing Jesus wherever He has called us to go, there will be the glory of life under His rule and reign — but there will also be difficulty, persecution, suffering — to the point of potentially losing life and limb.
For the Christian, this should be an assumed reality… How can we count the cost of being Jesus’ disciple if we don’t know what we’re getting into? Paul assumes this reality in his second letter to Timothy:
In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
It’s interesting, only Matthew’s gospel shows any argument to Jesus foretelling His death and resurrection… but outside of that, as much as this should prepare the disciples for the reality of the Kingdom, it doesn’t seem to click…
I suppose that many in our churches haven’t had it click for them either.
Not meant to be an indictment, or a judgment, about the maturity of the people in churches of the Presbytery of the Pacific Southwest… maybe just an observation…
It’s been my experience over the past 12 years or so that we prefer a Jesus who:
Will give us a “get-out-of-hell-free card” — like a comprehensive fire insurance policy
Or he’s a permissive friend, that most of what He says is optional, and if we decide to take it or leave it, He’s still the good buddy that He always was
Luke wants us to see the Suffering King, which is the title that He’s alluding to, who has inaugurated a Kingdom — because He’s a Savior King — where the inevitably of suffering will be met with the future hope of the King who has, as Johns’ Revelation puts it, come to “wipe every tear away from our eyes.”
It’s a good thing when the disciples do eventually get this, Peter says this in:
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
I consider it as the goal of my life to make disciples, and I’ve noticed at times, a disconnect in my own life with what Jesus has invited me to do. Look with at verse 23.
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
I think most, me included, are pretty good at remembering these words, but not so good at obeying these words.
To be a disciple is to deny oneself and take up their cross.
Taking up your cross is shorthand for “facing the prospect of a shameful death.”
Here’s what I’m being invited into:
Subverting my desires, the prospect of my preferred future — into the hands of Jesus, with the stark realization that my life doesn’t belong to me.
To steal a line from the Dutch in the Heidelberg Catechism: What is our only hope, or comfort, in life and death?
This is core to many Reformed believers around the world:
That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.
In the gospel, my life and the life of Jesus are intertwined. There’s no point at which the reality of me and the reality of Jesus can be separated. Paul says in Colossians 3, “and Christ, who is your life,…”
To follow Jesus is not to bring my life into the Kingdom so that I might preserve it, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get Jesus to agree with me; to follow Jesus is to lose my life, only to find that life itself has been found and is being preserved in His.
One of my favorite things to do, if I feel like my train of thought is outside the tradition of the church, is to consult the saints — it’s okay to reference dead guys, many of them were spot on.
A 20th century dead guy, many of you might know of, AW Tozer said:
Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and bring Him nearer to our own image.
A. W. Tozer
Here’s a 19th century dead guy you might be familiar with, Charles Spurgeon, who put it this way:
Jesus has made the life of his people as eternal as his own.
Charles Spurgeon
Or if that’s not dead enough, how about the 17th century Anglican priest, William Gurnall who said:
The life of Christ’s own glory is bound up in the eternal life of his saints.
William Gurnall
They’ve all been saying what Jesus said in verses 24 and 25. Luke 9:24-25
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?
Taking on the way of Jesus, to be like Jesus, to do what He did, — to be His disciple — is all rooted in the reality that the King & Judge of the Nations will come to see whether or not we have paid heed to His word.
What life will be found, mine? or a life that is indistinguishable from Jesus?
As spiritual leaders, we labor to an end…
In the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, he says in verse 19 what the end is… Galatians 4:19
My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,
Like Paul we work tirelessly to see that every effort of discipleship is made in our churches, and like Paul, until they reach maturity!
Paul wants them not only to dwell with Christ, which is what we do by faith, but He also wants them to know that Jesus, by the power of His Spirit is dwelling with them.
The inseparable nature of Jesus, as we are in Him, and He is in us, is core to help sustain our people as we call them deeper in trust, deeper in obedience, deeper in faith. It’s substantive.
When suffering, persecution, or if, or when, death knocks on our door, where is our security, our assurance, our hope? In Christ, with Christ.
This is a witness to our neighbors and the rest of the world, it demonstrates who is in charge, it screams the truth that this whole thing isn’t mine, it doesn’t belong to me,…
Blessing/Benediction
Blessing/Benediction
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be, world without end. Amen.
