Duel Citizenship

Luke 9:57-62

Good morning, Church!

I wanna thank all of you for being here this morning and I want to thank those of you that gave up your time yesterday to serve RES and serve at the Pistons and Pancakes here!

Also, thank you on the mulch crew with me for being flexible to move it to this coming Saturday. So, if you signed up to go to RFD, please do! Unless you were signed up to help with the mulch this weekend. I’m going to ask that you come to Lynnville at 8am to help pull weeds and install new mulch.

If you didn’t sign up for either, come join us at one of them! Its going to be a beautiful weekend to serve!

This morning, we are going to continue our study of what is a disciple?

The great commission calls us to go and make disciples but what is a disciple look like according to what Jesus said and did?

AW Tozer said, it takes a disciple to make a disciple.

We are asking the tough questions of ourselves here.

Am I a disciple like Jesus what Jesus taught a disciple should be?

Or an even harder one, am I a disciple worth replicating???

I think we have gotten away from teaching what Jesus said about discipleship and following Him. We actually avoid these passages because we know that we don’t follow them...

If you haven’t watched last week, I encourage you to catch up. These messages all run into each other.

But this morning, we are going to look at Luke 9:57-62.

Its Jesus having 3 conversations with 3 potential disciples.

3 people come to Jesus and the invitation or desire to follow Jesus is presented. But Jesus who can see into the hearts of people identifies 3 different possible hindrances or things stopping the from following Him or being His disciple.

One of the essential truths of the gospels and teachings of Jesus is the truth that being a disciple is acceptance into the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus’ first public message according to Matthew was, “Repent, for the the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”

He was teaching that He was bringing to Earth a new kingdom, the Kingdom of His heavenly Father.

But in order to be apart of that kingdom, you must repent!

To enter into the kingdom of heaven, we must be willing to turn and depart this earthly kingdom.

This is echoed all throughout the NT. It is one of the core teachings of Jesus.

And with these 3 conversations with potential disciples, Jesus is addressing three major earthly kingdom things that we hold on to that actually hinder us from being a fully surrendered, fully committed disciple of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is saying, there is going to be a cost. There are things you are going to have to stop pursuing, loving, and prioritizing. There are things you are going to have to be willing to walk away from if you want to follow me!

The type of disciples that Jesus desires that we go and make, we have to turn away from the kingdom of the earth and fully commit to trust in Him for His eternal kingdom!

Jesus addresses possibly the three biggest hindrances that hinder even us today from fully following Him.

Let’s read the passage together.

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.”

Now, its interesting that the passage does not tell us if these three people still desired to follow Jesus after hearing what they would have to be willing to turn from because that is not the point.

The point is that Jesus wants them to know what they are getting into asking to follow Him.

Let’s break them down one by one.

The first conversation is with what I call

The impulsive potential disciple. Vs 57-58

Luke 9:57–58 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.”

This person impulsively doesn’t wait for Jesus to ask him to follow Him. He proclaims that he is ready to jump in now!

You can almost hear his enthusiasm, his passion and excitement to follow Jesus!

It bubbled up before Jesus can even offer an invitation to follow me.

But we don’t see Jesus chastise him or condemn him. Jesus just responds with a little bit of a reality check for him.

I’m glad your excited but you are going to need more than excitement to follow me because foxes have homes and birds have nest but I don’t have the comfort of a home.

It’s going to be uncomfortable to follow me. You are going to have to give somethings up and its not going to be easy.

I wonder if Jesus saw in this person the seed that was cast on rocky soil. That passage says that they recieved the word with joy but as soon as difficulty, tribulation or persecution arises, they wither away.

The specific hindrance that I believe Jesus is identifying is the god of comfort, security and possessions.

Jesus is saying in order to be apart of the kingdom of heaven and follow Him, you must turn away from seeking your comfort and security from our earthly possessions. Yes, even our houses if He asks us to.

Some call this the poverty test.

Jesus is saying, to follow me means that you do not value comfort over following Him.

Because, guess what? The Holy Spirit is going to ask you to do some uncomfortable things!

To be a disciple means that we choose obedience over comfort or security.

But our problem, especially in our culture of affluence, so much of our comfort and security comes from our earthly possessions and they are so easy to come by.

We pursue and run to the things of this earth as our primary source of feeling safe and cozy. We are pursuing something bigger though through these things.

We are really pursuing rest in these things.

We talked about this a couple of weeks ago that the destination of faith is rest! It is not found in the things of this earth!

We are turning towards things not of God and even praying and asking Him for more things that are not of Him in our pursuit to find comfort and security in things of this world!

We pray, Lord help me buy a house so that I can be comfortable.

We pray, Lord please provide me with this or that, so that I can find security in that thing and not you!

We literally pray to God for things of this earth that He is meant to provide for us.

No wonder the pursuit of those things will leave you tired and to busy.

The worst thing that Jesus could do for us is answer those prayers because it opens the door to fall and worship those things rather than Him!

When Jesus said, come to me all that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest for your souls...

This impulsive potential disciple might reject following Jesus because he is unwilling to leave behind the pursuit of things of this earthly kingdom that will leave us empty and void of the abundant life Jesus desires to bring to you.

We end up worshiping the things of this earthly kingdom rather than following Jesus.

The second conversation Jesus has in this passage is

The reluctant potential disciple vs 59-60

Luke 9:59–60 ESV

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.”

Here we see Jesus making the invitation to follow Him. But this potential disciple is hesitant to jump in.

If the first conversation was a person going too fast and Jesus telling Him to slow down for a minute.

This person is going too slow. Jesus makes the invitation and he is reluctant to say yes and jump in.

He recognizes Jesus as Lord but first wants to accomplish something before following Him.

Its important to know that he was not asking because his father was dying or dead. Jewish tradition was that in order to receive your inheritance from your father, you must see them through the final years of their lives.

It was a common saying back then to say, let me go and see after my family interest first.

But this man, had money on the heart. He desired that inheritance and the security that money would bring to his life.

He was reluctant to fully commit to following Jesus.

According to Matthews account of this, this man was already following Jesus but he was hesitant to follow commit because it might cost him financially.

Once again, this man was trapped in the kingdom of earth and not willing to turn away from it. He was reluctant because of what it might cost him. He saw dollar signs in his future and he was really looking forward to having that income!

I wonder if Jesus saw in Him the seed that was cast among thorns, he cares for the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke out the word and it proves unfruitful.

Jesus hits him with a blunt comment. Let the dead bury the dead.

Meaning, let the spiritually dead deal with the spiritually dead.

Those who were not following Jesus, those who were not willing to give it all up for Him was spiritually dead and He says to let them deal with each other.

But as for YOU, I am offering spiritual LIFE and then YOU get to go and proclaim this LIFE you found in the kingdom of God to others in the world!

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount,

Matthew 6:19–21 ESV

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:24 ESV

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

No one can serve two masters! Either you serve money and the pursuit of storing up money that it simply going to be destroyed and left behind after we die.

Or, you serve God and His kingdom and pursue heavenly treasures that will never perish!

But you must choose!

Jesus said, you CANNOT serve both God and money!

SO, this reluctant potential disciple was caught in between the comfort, security and rest that money could bring to his life and was hesitant to let it go in pursuit of the kingdom of God.

Jesus in the sermon on the mount follows that passage with

Matthew 6:31–33 ESV

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

But prioritize seeking His kingdom, following Jesus, being His disciple and His righteousness, and all of these things that you need money to get, will be provided for you from HIM!

So, many of us will go through our entire lives and never surrender this to the Lord. The pursuit of wealth is a tempting seduction.

And so, many of us will spend the majority of our lives with this hindrance to being fully committed, fully surrendered disciples.

The final hindrance that Jesus addresses in our passage is

The conditional potential disciple vs 61-21

Luke 9:61–62 ESV

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 potential disciple’s heart is desiring to follow Jesus earnestly.

And again, he is the one initiating it!

However, he adds the conditional “But” to his commitment.

He says, I will follow you “if” you allow me to do this...

Now, this person was specifically concerned about his relationships with others. He wanted to go and talk about it with his friends. He wanted for his relationships with others to suffer or look any different than they did before.

His heart was half-way with Jesus and half-way with earthly relationships.

He said, I will follow you but I need to keep my relationships the same with others the same, they can’t suffer.

He has placed a condition or is attempting to bargain or negotiate with Jesus for his following.

This is called the test of earthly relationships.

Do I value my relationships with others over my relationship with the Lord?

But I call this the conditional potential disciple because you can put any condition behind the “but”.

I’ll follow you but just don’t ask me to move.

I’ll follow you but just not to China or the Middle East.

I’ll follow you but don’t ask me to quit my job.

I’ll follow you but don’t ask me to give up football, or Facebook, or this hobby or that hobby.

Jesus is not saying that you have to give up all of these things to follow me but He is showing us that if there is a condition to our commitment, then it is revealing where are our heart’s truly are.

If we have a condition to our commitment, then it shows that we value that thing or that relationship higher that we value following Jesus.

When I first submitted to the call to ministry, I offered a conditional commitment to the Lord.

He called me to be willing to serve as a pastor and my response was yes but just not youth ministry.

Guess what I did first, youth ministry. It showed me that I valued what I thought I would like or be more comfortable with or what I thought I would like better over submitting to His will.

And what I learned through that truly was that I can trust Him to do all things through Him. If He says go, I can trust Him even if its uncomfortable or something at the time that I didn’t really want to do.

I attempted to bargain with God and He came straight for my what I was holding back! Because He wants all of you! Everything! Every area. If He says drop it, we drop up. If He says pick it up, we pick it up!

Jesus desires all of you...

In this Luke passage, Jesus was addressing three of the major hindrances to being a disciple of Jesus.

We desire to be people that walk in the kingdom of God but truthfully, we still have a foot or two in kingdom of earth still.

We honestly are living like people with duel citizenship. We want to be apart of His Kingdom but still enjoy the pleasures of this kingdom.

Its time to renounce our earthly citizenship.

To be a disciple, we must fully commit, fully surrender to walking in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said in the final verse of our passage.

Luke 9:62 ESV

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Its time church for us to be the kind of disciples that Jesus was looking for!

Its time for us to stop looking back to the earthly kingdom while we are trying to work to the kingdom of God.

Its time for us to jump two feet into the kingdom of God and to stop being impulsive or reluctant to follow Him out of fear or holding on to the temporary comforts of this kingdom.

Its time, church that we were disciples that are worth being duplicated.

So, who is in?

Let’s pray.

May the focus not be on what we may have to surrender or give up, but may our focus be on what we recieve!

YOU!! JESUS!!