Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2007 : September 16, 2007

Theme: Do You Have What It Takes to Follow Christ?

Church year occasion: Pentecost 16

It never fails -- whenever you go on a trip, you always end up leaving something behind. Then you find out if you really needed it or not. Maybe you leave your toothbrush behind. But do you really need it? What's it going to hurt if you don't brush your teeth for a night or two, or a week? I'm assuming people around you will let you know that you should buy another one pretty quickly. Suppose you forget the storage case for your contacts. Do you really need it? You can carefully put a little contact solution in the bottom of a cup overnight. Just make sure you tell your family not to drink your contacts if they're thirsty. What if you have a baby and you forget his pacifier? Do you really need it? That's an easy one -- yes! If you know what's good for you, you'll turn around immediately or buy one, or it'll be a very long trip.

Jesus is also talking about going on a trip in the words before us. But in this trip Jesus warns us that you have to be absolutely prepared before you start out -- otherwise it could end in disaster. The trip Jesus talks about is being his follower. So today we ask the question: Do You Have What It Takes to Follow Christ? It seems like a rather easy question to answer, until you hear what Jesus says.

Jesus tells us that you need three things for this journey:

You need to leave something behind.
You need to take something along.
You need a traveling companion.

Crowds were following Jesus. Many in the crowds were just curious to see who this prophet from Nazareth was and to hear the things he had to say. You almost get the impression that they saw Jesus as the talk of the day, a novelty that shouldn't be missed, a very exciting addition to an otherwise boring day. I almost get the feeling that many in the crowds were following Jesus much like people in 1861 went to the first great battle of the Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run, when many high-standing men and women went to see the battle on a nearby hill with their picnic baskets and umbrellas at the ready, ready to see the show. And then the bullets started flying and the mortar shells started bursting, and people started dying -- and they realized this was serious business and not just a walk in the park.

Jesus' words left no doubt that following him would be no walk in the park either. Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters -- yes, even his own life -- he cannot be my disciple." Imagine what the crowd following Jesus must have been thinking when they heard his words: "Did I hear that right? Did Jesus really say he wants us to hate our family?" When they found out that it was exactly what Jesus had said, it would have made them think twice about following Jesus. And that's exactly why Jesus said it the way he did. Following him isn't going to be some walk in the park. We can't just coast through our lives of being believers. There were some people in John's day in Laodicea who were coasting along in their lives also. They were wealthy like we are today. They didn't have to worry about where their next meal came from, like us today. And Jesus in Revelation told them that as a result he was about to spit them out of his mouth!

If we are coasting along in our Christian life, we need to hear Jesus' words. They need to make us think twice. In fact, as Christians we should be thinking twice in every situation we find ourselves in. A friend asks us to experiment with drugs. We should think twice: "Is this what I as a follower of Jesus should be doing?" A job offer comes along that will make us spend a lot of time away from home and have us working hours in which we know our spiritual life will suffer. We should think twice: "Is making a more comfortable living worth the extra strain on my relationship with my spouse and children and especially on my relationship with my Savior?" A family moves in down the street, and we just haven't gotten up the gumption to ask them if they have a church home or not. We should think twice: "Did Jesus call me to be his witness or not?" It should make us think twice when Jesus says we should hate family members if we are to be his followers. He doesn't want us to hate our family because that would clearly go against his command to love one another. Jesus is obviously using the shock value of his words to make sure we don't miss the point. Nothing, not one single thing, should get in the way of our relationship with our Savior -- not our family, not our possessions, not our jobs -- nothing.

Remember Job? He lost his ten children all at the same time. What did he do? In his anguish, he said, "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Could we praise God if something that horrible happened to our family, as Job did? Or would we blame God and be angry with God if our spouse or another loved one dies? Would we stop going to church, or would we stop trying to serve God in everything? If so, then we're not ready to follow Jesus as his disciple.

Remember Abraham? Abraham showed us to what extent we have to hate our families. He was willing even to sacrifice his own son Isaac in order to follow his Lord. Would we be able to do that? If not, then Jesus is saying, "You're not ready to follow me."

Jesus then said, "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." Those words really ought to jolt us upright. If you were asked, "What do you love more than Jesus?" you'd probably say, "Nothing. I'm a believer. Jesus means everything to me." Is that so? Could you give all your money into the temple treasury like the poor widow in Jesus' day? If not, then you're not ready to be a follower of Christ.

Think hard about this, really hard: You must leave everything -- EVERYTHING -- to follow Jesus. Can we do that every moment of every day of our lives? No way! There have been plenty of times we've put ourselves or our families or our possessions before Christ. Then Jesus says, "You can't be my disciple."

That's a very sobering statement by Jesus. But he's not done yet. Not only do we need to leave something behind -- everything -- if we are to follow Jesus, but he also says we need to take something along -- our cross.

Jesus said, "Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." So as we pack up our gear for this journey, we leave everything behind, except for a cross. Is that something you usually pack when you are about to go on vacation? If you take your cross, you're taking everything that gives you pain and misery and scorn and ridicule because you are a Christian. Jesus said the world will hate us because of him. Does the world really hate us, or do we get along a little too well in this world? If the world doesn't hate us, then maybe we haven't picked up our cross.

Jesus then gives two illustrations of what it means to leave everything behind and take only our cross in following Jesus. The first is a man who is building a tower and didn't estimate the cost. His neighbors will ridicule him. When those outside our church look at us as Christians, do they see us as different or do they see someone who says all the right things, but often our lives show that we don't always act like we should? Then we have not counted the cost of being a disciple.

The second illustration in counting the cost is a king who is about to wage war against another king. Fighting a war takes sacrifice. The U.S. sees that clearly right now as the death toll rises in the War Against Terror. With both of these illustrations he is saying basically, "Count what it will cost you to be my disciple before you so quickly say you are willing to follow me. If you don't put me first every moment of every day, you can't be my disciple! If you can't face ridicule willingly, and even death, then you can't be my disciple!" If that's the case, then we have to realize we can't be Jesus' disciple, we can't be a Christian. It's impossible! And so it is. So do we have what it takes to follow Jesus? No. Not by a long shot.

But that's where we look to someone else. Following Jesus means we need to leave everything else behind. We also need to take our cross along with us. But before we can do either of those things, we need a traveling companion.

We can't follow Jesus by ourselves. As we saw earlier, we fail miserably every step of the way. We constantly get our priorities all messed up. We often buckle when we even think of someone ridiculing us for being a Christian. We need someone who doesn't have that problem. We need Christ to be our traveling companion on this journey. Our inadequacies have separated us from our God. By nature, we don't even want to follow Jesus. He is inaccessible to us.

But he's not completely inaccessible. Where we failed to count the cost and live according to God's will, Jesus succeeded. Christ had his priorities straight even as a 12-year-old. He stayed in Jerusalem and told his parents, "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:49) And he was also obedient and loving to his parents at the same time. He struck the proper balance by putting God always first and his parents second, but still obeying them.

When his half-brothers tried to keep him from teaching, he continued to teach, even though he certainly received much ridicule from them and from those in his home town of Nazareth. He put God before his brothers. Money and the pursuit of it never got the better of him. He was content in all circumstances, even though he had next to no earthly possessions and no place to lay his head during his earthly ministry. He definitely put everyone else before himself because he gave up his life unto death, scorning the shame of the cross.

Where we often fail to take up our cross, Jesus didn't fail. He took his cross, which was really our cross, all the way to Calvary and died on it so we could live eternally, so we could be followers of Jesus, saints, holy ones through his blood. And the Holy Spirit called us to faith so that he made each of us a disciple of Jesus, ready to live for Jesus and others only because Jesus' righteousness already covers us. Now with Christ's precious blood covering over all our sins, we have what we need to please God. With the Holy Spirit living in our hearts through faith, we have what it takes to be a follower of Jesus. Now the Holy Spirit leads us to get our priorities straight. With the Holy Spirit living in us, we know it is God who is working in us to will and to act according to God's good pleasure.

So strap on your walking shoes; get your walking stick. Think of things that are keeping you from completely following Jesus. Leave them behind. You don't need them. Get ready to face ridicule for the name of Jesus as you take your cross with you everywhere you go. And with the Holy Spirit in your heart and Jesus walking beside you, you can say, "I'm ready to follow Christ." Amen.