Idol of Family
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State:
The scriptures Adam chose this week are hard for our western perception of what it is like to follow Jesus.
These scriptures deeply challenge me as they should you.
These scriptures run contrary to the western priority and pursuit of:
Financial security
Career advancement
Home & property
Being socially accepted-fitting in/image
The last 60 years of western Christianity has flipped traditional Christian ethos on its head
Instead of leaving everything for Christ
its
In Christ we can and some say should have all these things
Theform of Christianity that says:
27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.
What is the cross?
Anything that will crucify you
Jesus stresses the hindrence that wealth can bring us
Camel through the eye of a needle
Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.
WHY?
Because a rich person has possessions that their heart has become attached to making it hard to leave them or let go of them.
Their home
Their possessions
Today’s Scriptures
Jesus get’s blunt about what it requires to follow him.....well.
Everything Jesus asks us to do is for our spiritual benefit
Doing them will yield spiritual fruit, though we may not see it immediately.
57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” 62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
State:
What is the point here?
Burial of your Father was a sworn responsibility
Jesus is saying he is more important than that
Saying good-bye to your family and getting your house in order
Jesus is saying the priority of proclaiming the Kingdom is more important than this.
State:
What is Jesus getting at here?
He is not saying that we should not do these things.
1 Timothy 5:8 (NLT)
8 But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers.
Jesus is getting at what controls our priorities
Last week’s talk said:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
State:
Jesus gives us another example of what following him would intail.
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
Jesus also says....
53 ‘Father will be divided against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’”
Another example of a change of perception
19 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they couldn’t get to him because of the crowd. 20 Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, and they want to see you.” 21 Jesus replied, “My mother and my brothers are all those who hear God’s word and obey it.”
Jesus gives a promise about sacrificing
29 “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the Kingdom of God, 30 will be repaid many times over in this life, and will have eternal life in the world to come.”
State:
All of these seemingly extreme demands sound strange in our western-styled Christianity.
BUT…If Christianity and Christians becomes beyond the tolerance of western society....the potential to experience this kind of allegience to Jesus could become very real.