1.
Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. Amen. Our Gospel lesson for this Sunday from
Luke 9:51-62 points to the fact that the life for us as followers of Jesus is a
life of self-denial. Our service to the Lord must come first in our lives.
Whatever earthly things stand in the way of such service must be put
aside. The message is entitled, “No Looking Back,” dear brothers and
sisters in Christ.
2.
There’s a story told about one-time heavyweight
boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Ali was flying to one of his engagements and
during the flight the aircraft ran into bad weather. Turbulence began to toss
the plane about. Of course, all nervous fliers well know that when a pilot
signals “moderate turbulence,” he’s
saying, “If you have any religious
beliefs, it’s time to start expressing them.” The passengers were
instructed to fasten their seatbelts, and all complied but Ali. So the flight
attendant approached him and requested that he observe the captain’s order,
only to hear Ali respond, “Superman don’t
need no seatbelt.” But, the flight attendant didn’t miss a beat, she fired
in reply, “Superman don’t need no
airplane either!”
3.
This is a good story because I would like you to
consider the larger context in which many of us find ourselves. I think that
all of you would agree that we work diligently to position ourselves for
success in a rapidly-changing world. And when we reach success a sense of
invincibility can be felt. But, we who
are followers of Christ must remember that academic or material achievement
doesn’t necessarily make a person wise. How foolish it would be for us to take
what generations preceding us have valued in coping with life’s turbulence and
cast it all aside because we are “modern.”
G.K. Chesterton advised that before pulling any fences down, we should always
pause long enough to find out why it was put there in the first place. In one of
his proverbs, King Solomon writes:
“Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding, for they
are more profitable than silver and yield better returns than gold. Wisdom is
more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with it”
(Proverbs 3:13-15). From this same king we are told that the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom. In other words, reverence for God is where wisdom
starts, recognition that there is a giver of knowledge and wisdom.
4.
Mohammed Ali’s comment that he was “superman” who
didn’t need a seatbelt while the plane he was on was in dire distress makes me
think of the current state of our culture today in America. Many people today are living their lives as
if God doesn’t care how they live, or like practical atheists, that God doesn’t
really exist so why should it matter how I live. But, this way of thinking that we are
invincible and like superman is dangerous.
Remember the words of our Lord Jesus from Luke 9:62 for today, “No
one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of
God.” This past week I had another reminder that many people in our
culture are looking back to unbelief, to godlessness, rather than toward the
cross of Christ and the new way of life God has called us to live. This past week the Supreme Court issued its
ruling on same sex marriage. It struck
down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), allowing for federal
benefits for legally married gay couples and potentially allowing for gay
marriage in all of California with regard to Proposition 8. Though the ruling
isn’t a surprise, we are saddened for our nation, even as we call all
Christians to faithfulness and prayer.
5.
As Christians, we believe and confess that God
Himself instituted marriage as the life-long union of one man and one woman. Marriage wasn’t created by religion. Marriage
wasn’t created by courts or countries. Marriage didn’t originate as man’s idea.
Marriage originated with God. Jesus Himself spoke of this in Matt. 19:4-6, “And He answered and said to them, “Have you
not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’
and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no
longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man
separate.” (quoting Genesis 1:27 and 2:24) Same-sex unions are contrary to God’s
will, and gay marriage is, in the eyes of God, no marriage at all. As
Christians, we proclaim this truth, no matter what people say. We’re called not
to popularity but truth. Marriage is a building block of society, binding
parents to their offspring. Every child benefits from the nurture of a mother
and the leadership of a father. While having one mother is a blessing, having
two mothers or two fathers is confusing for the child and detrimental to her
well-being. The divorce culture has done great harm to the institution of
marriage as well. Leaving many children
without the presence of a mother or a father within the home hurts their
development and their own understanding of what marriage is and how to build a
family of their own when they grow up.
6.
Scripture calls homosexuality sinful in Lev. 18:22;
20:13; Rom. 1:24–27, but the Bible also says plainly that those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness,”
those who repent and show sorrow over their sin, are forgiven and loved by
Christ. And so as Christ’s Church, we
forgive and love too, following His lead with compassion and humility. We
forgive and love because we’re all sinners in need of His grace and mercy. Because
no matter the sin, we’ve all rebelled against our Creator and fallen prey to
unbelief.
7.
Remember Jesus’ words again from Luke 9:62, “No
one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of
God.” In Luke 9 we hear about people who wanted to follow Jesus, but
they wanted to wait awhile. They had
important things to do first. But, when
people wanted to attend to other matters first, Jesus reminds us in Matthew
6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” This was the only way to do it. Nothing else should come before the Kingdom
of God, for Jesus and for us His followers, there’s no looking back. We must not let the sway of the world, the devil,
and our own sinful flesh lead us away from Christ.
8.
Remember in
the context of Luke 9 that for
two years, Jesus has been teaching, healing, and ministering to those in His
home of Galilee. But now, He’s “set His face to go to Jerusalem” (vs. 51),
the place of His Passion, His dying on the cross to take on the punishment for
sin that we all deserve because of our own sinfulness. Jesus won’t be stopped from His mission to go
to the cross for you! There’s no looking
back for Him.
9.
Maybe we recall Jesus’ words about what was sown
among the thistles from Matthew’s Gospel in the Parable of the Sower. It isn’t only obvious sins that can keep a
person away from God, but also honorable duties, daily obligations like work,
things we think that can’t be neglected.
But, the question is this… What
comes first? God created us to live with
Him, through Him, for Him, and to Him.
We can’t do that without His Word.
It’s through His Word that God begins a relationship with us. The Word needs time. You can’t hear it, read it, or learn it
without devoting a certain amount of time to it. We have to take that time. We shouldn’t let anything disturb us during
that time. There are a great many
distractions that try to do that. Jesus speaks
about the concerns we have today that demand our attention and fill our
day. They’re already waiting for us at
our bedside in the morning on our smartphones, tablet computers, on TV, and in
the newspaper, as well as on our “to do” lists.
These things demand our interest and set the order of the day for
us. They make us wonder how we will find
time for everything. It’s tempting to
shorten our morning prayer or forget it altogether. It’s so easy for us to say: I don’t have time today. Now the thorns are beginning to grow over our
heads. They will keep growing until one
day we may no longer see heaven.
10.
Three
examples serve to illustrate Jesus’ resolve to go to the cross. First, to one who says, “I will follow You wherever You go,” (vs. 57), Jesus responds, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” (vs. 58). The Greek word for “nests” can describe
not only a bird’s nest but also a human dwelling place (ex, 2 Samuel 7:10
LXX). So, as Jesus heads towards
Jerusalem, there will be no temporary residence along the way. He will find no rest for Himself. He must make it to His destination. There’s no looking back. To another man who, before following Jesus,
says, “Lord, let me first go and bury my
father,” (vs. 59), Jesus replies, “Leave
the dead to bury their own dead,” (vs. 60).
At first, Jesus’ response might sound harsh. But this is hardly the case. In the Ancient Near East, burials involved
two stages: the initial burial where the
body was placed in a tomb and them, about a year later, the removal of the
deceased’s bones to a permanent place of internment. This man could have been requesting a year’s
respite before following Jesus. But,
Jesus can’t dilly dally for a year, there’s no looking back, He’s going to the
cross to die in order to give you the forgiveness of your sins. Finally another man says to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first
say farewell to those at my home,” (vs. 61). This man’s “but” reveals his true
allegiance—and it’s not to His Lord. As
Jesus says elsewhere, “Whoever loves his
father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves his son or
daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” (Matt. 10:37). Family is important, but following Jesus
is of first importance.
11.
Jesus
has set His face for Jerusalem. And He
will not stop for any man. But even though He won’t stop for any man, He will
die for every man. He will die on the
cross for you and me. As Jesus says, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered
into the hands of men” (Luke 9:44). This
is why Jesus won’t be sidetracked. For
Jesus is going to Jerusalem to be delivered and to die for you and me. Praise be to God that Jesus made it to His
destination. That, He didn’t look
back! Amen.
Please pray with me: Lord,
tell me every day that I need to seek Your Kingdom first. I need to hear it so much. I know what is most important, and yet it is
easy for me to let everything else get in the way. I know that Your Word is the bread of life and
I can’t live without it. But, I still
try to, time after time. But, I don’t
neglect my meals. I very seldom let
anything get in the way of them. Lord,
make me that concerned about my soul so that it receives the bread of life it
needs so much. Make it obvious to me
that You come first and are more important than anything else in the
world. I can live without most of what I
have in this world, but I can’t live without You. Amen.
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