While 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.”- Luke 9:57-62 ESV
Rev. Dwight Yoo
Our generation wants to do extraordinary and radical things. We often diminish ordinary things and lives. But God works through ordinary church life and the ordinary everyday tasks in our lives.
The other side of things is those who are lazy and comfortable. They are on the other extreme, looking to take the easy way.
But the life that God calls is to is radical and challenging. It may often not look that way; it is pretty normal looking from the outside in. We are called to radical devotion and sacrifice.
What kind of life does Christ call us to?
Great cost and sacrifice
Jesus tells a man that the Son of Man has no place to lay His head. This is the equivalent of leaving a high five hanging in the air. A man says he will follow Jesus. Jesus tells the man that there would be no worldly home for him. That we could lose out on riches, promotions, and comfortable lifestyles. Following Jesus will ostracize you from close friends and family because you are changed when you follow Him. They will be struck by the fact that you are no longer the same person they once knew.
"I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantegous to themselves... For myself, the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political." -- Aldous Huxley in Ends and Means
Jesus has first priority in your life period.
Jesus calls a man to follow Him. And then tells the man to proclaim to kingdom rather than bury his father. There is question about whether this man's father is dead or dying. We are not to take this as abolishing our command to honor our parents, but rather we are to obey Jesus far and above any other call in our lives.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.- Luke 14:26 ESV
By putting God first, we find satisfaction and contentment in Him alone. Then in that state, we can more fully love and serve those close to us. We can love and serve without need of their affirmation and reciprocation. Unconditional love because God's love fills us.
Keeping kingdom focused, even at the cost of your life
You cannot plow a straight lines if you keep looking in various directions. Saying goodbye to friends and family is not a problem, being distracted from being kingdom focused is. We are called to live lives focused on kingdom growth and proclamation.
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. - Luke 9:23-24 ESV
We are to give up those worldly things that drew us before Christ. And when time passes, as we go to work in the kingdom of God, to give them up again and again.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Matthew 13:44 ESV
In doing this, in all the demands on our lives, we will find joy and life everlasting. But more than that, this is intensely personal for Jesus, for He gave everything up for us first. We will gladly give up all these things for what God will give us is worth much more than these things.
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