Birds, Foxes, and the Son of Man

Introduction

Luke 9:57–62 ESV

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

This year, I have gone skiing for the first time. Living in MS, skiing was not accessible at all, so to be able to ski sometimes is a lot of fun. Erin and I also went skiing with her family for vacation this year.

I am really glad there is no video footage of my first time skiing. It was a disaster!

One of the most important parts of skiing, especially when you start, is learning the rating of the various slopes. There are three general ratings, “Green circle, blue square, and black diamond.”

Those three ratings show how difficult the slope is going to be. They allow you to assess the difficulty of the journey before you go.

If you go on a black diamond and you almost die, you can’t say, “No one told me it would be that hard.”

I must say, before I skied, I just kept saying “Black Diamond all the way, baby. No holding back.” After a half a day in ski school, I was thinking, “You know those greens looks really great and a lot of fun.”

In the same way, as Jesus is talking with his disciples, he is eliminating some preconceived notions that they have about the journey they are going to undertake.

Jesus does not suffer their ill-informed notions of what following after Him will entail.

Explanation

No Empty Words

“I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replies, “Birds have holes, and foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.”

Was Jesus homeless from this point until the cross? Absolutely not.

Following Jesus does not mean that you will always suffer or need to suffer unnecessarily, but that there will be days of great difficulty. And you will have days where following Jesus is harder than the alternative.

Jesus was preparing this person for that reality. It is easy to follow Jesus in the miracles, good teachings, and community of likeminded people. It is difficult to follow Jesus to the cross. The scattering of the disciples prove it.

Jesus IS NOT telling his disciples that to be a part of the varsity team of disciples they have to do the hardest thing conceivable to their minds. Jesus IS telling his disciples that they can expect hard days if they commit themselves to him.

Let me give you an example from my own life. When God called me to the ministry, he had been cultivating the fruit in my life for awhile through many things, but he used the preaching of David Platt to shake the fruit loose.

I was at a BCM conference about global missions and David Platt preached about going to the nations. I surrendered to life of ministry shortly afterwards.

I had just finished Francis Chan’s book on Crazy Love, and I was working through Platt’s book, “Radical” and John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life.” If you haven’t read those books, they teach about the need for deep and increased obedience to the Lord Jesus.

The natural conclusion for a 19-20 year old was… “perfect, I will go home this weekend, burn all of my possessions and move to Africa.”

What I learned as I grew in my calling was that following Jesus is less about doing the hardest thing I could conceive and more about dying to myself every day and being specifically obedient to what he called me to.

For me, it meant to pastor a church to be faithful to the Great Commission.

Some days that is easier than others, but my calling is to die so that I might live and lead you all to live for the sake of Christ.

But don’t miss this vital point: There was a girl at that conference who, today, is in Southeast Asia. And another man is in Africa.

Their following after Jesus is no less or more important than mine based upon the difficulty of the assignment or the fruit it has yielded. The Lord doesn’t evaluate our service that way.

Our ministries, our lives, and our callings will be evaluated based upon this principle: Did you do what I asked you to do?

So let me ask you, “Are you resolved to follow Jesus even if it costs you greatly?”

It should be natural that people leave our church and become engineers, doctors, teachers, linemen, carpenters, veterinarians etc.

It should also be natural that the Lord calls out missionaries, pastors, ministers, etc.

It should be natural that we all make decisions based on following Jesus that will be costly.

In the life of every follower of Christ is difficulty, but Jesus makes it clear in this passage that followship will cost us. And he will challenge us to assess the cost.

No Greater Allegiance

Another asks Jesus, “Let me first go and bury my father” Jesus replies, “Leave the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”

The Jewish duty of burying one’s father had precedence over everything else. Only in the case of a Nazarite vow or if one were the high priests could he be absolved of this duty.

Jesus demands an allegiance transcending even the greatest of family obligations.

We have a great allegiance to the people in our lives. The weight of what people will say and do often takes precedent over Jesus.

Our hearts must replace the question, “What will they think?” with “What will He say?”

We must stop creating a life that others will envy and start living a life that will please God.

Jesus comment about the dead burying their own dead sounds harsh, and it truly is harsh. But it digs into the purpose of the disciples.

Only in the proclamation of the gospel is death reversed.

Greater than the act of respect to one’s father to bury him is the pull of the message of the gospel that others would be rescued from death and hell.

Jesus says, you can go and bury your father, but you will be filfilling a ritual of death. Whereas, my if you follow me, you will bring life to the people around you.

You may miss the funeral, but come with me, and you are going to see a resurrection.

No Looking Back

“Let me go and tell my family goodbye.” Jesus replies, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

We have some OT depth in this request. Elijah was with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration at the beginning of the passage. James and John just tried to call down fire like Elijah. These instances lead us to Elijah’s calling of Elisha.

1 Kings 19:19–21 “So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?” And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him.”

Certainly Jesus would allow this young man to go home and kiss his mother and father goodbye. Elijah did for Elisha after all. And that went as well as it could have gone.

Jesus says, “What I am asking you to do is greater even than what Elijah asked Elisha to do.”

In order to plow a field, you must look ahead of you. You cannot check behind or you will veer off course.

Jesus is looking for deep commitment from his followers.

Some of you want to follow Jesus, but you also really want your old life.

You want Jesus, but you want your sin.

You want Jesus, but you really don’t want him to change your life.

You want Jesus, but you want the ideology of the world in which we live more than His true way.

Invitation

Jesus did not ask us for something that he did not give himself.