Without Strings

Introduction:

This memorial weekend I wish to give a message that seeks to honor the dedicated…

The title of this message is “Without Strings: a guide for Christianity”

Let us open in a word of prayer :

Scripture Reading:

The New King James Version (Luke 9:57–62)

57 Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”58 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.”59 Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”61 And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Turn with me to Luke 9:57-62 and it reads.

How many of you are on a journey?

Who by a show of hands have has responsibilities on this journey?

Life is filled with responsibility

Now let me address you attention to the last part of this. Do I have any farmers in the house?

Now a days so much is done with machines we again lose a little context.

But this part also alludes to Genesis: 19

The New King James Version (Genesis 19:15–17)

15 When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”

16 And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

17 So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, a“Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”

The New King James Version (Genesis 19:23–26)

23 The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. 24 Then the LORD rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.26 But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

There is a danger in looking back?

What is behind you?

For some it is comfort that leads to laziness

For some it is unhealthy responsibility to family or friends that will detract you from achieving the necessary end goal.

I have found that one of the challenge of being here in a training environment

Phil 3:13

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

What ever is behind you is not greater then what Jesus has before you. It does not mean that it will be easy!

The New King James Version (Galatians 5:1)

5 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

Remove Handcuffs

Today I seek to honor the dedicated of the faith the ones who paid the cost of their lives because they would not give up on their faith in Christ Jesus