The Transformation Power of Scripture
Well, this morning we're back in Luke's Gospel, chapter 9, as we are continuing our way through the whole gospel, sort of section by section, looking at what God's word has for us to know and to understand. But really, as we study in this gospel, we're not simply trying to fill our heads with knowledge that we would become the smartest Christians or the most informed Christians. We want to study this because of the transforming power that we find in its pages.
The message that is declared here in Luke's Gospel is a message that has resonated throughout all of human history, and that as God has worked not only in the lifetime of Jesus, but as he works through the lives of Jesus' followers—and we would count ourselves among Jesus' followers if we have accepted him to be our Lord and our Savior.
I don't know about you, if you've ever been in a situation where you felt out of place and how you responded to that, but it can be very socially awkward to feel like you don't belong. When our family first moved overseas and lived in Scotland, we were quickly reminded that although we looked like most of the people that we were around, we were not like the people that we were around. We were different. This was brought face to face to us very early on.
Within the first few days of moving our family across the pond and settling into northeast Scotland, we took the kids over to a playground. Miles was four and Madeline was two at the time. We were in a little village called Johnshaven on the coast of Scotland, and it was what you might picture of a postcard of a quaint fishing village on the North Sea. As we were there at that playground, it was very cold by our standards. We moved there in March, and it was, to me, freezing cold at that time, where here spring was just beginning.
We were outside on a small playground, and Miles and Madeline were just getting into the playground equipment, and some other boys and girls from the community were there. One of the boys was interacting with Miles and said to him, "You're not from here, are you?" And Miles said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, you don't talk like we talk. And if you're going to live here, you're going to have to learn to talk like us."
Well, that little boy in his innocence was letting Miles know that Miles was not accepted there yet, that he was not yet considered local because he didn't talk like him. He may have looked like him, but he didn't talk like him. And how Miles reacted to that in the moment was he knew where he was accepted. He came to Crystal and I and told us that story. And in short order, both Miles and Madeline developed Scottish accents, maybe not Johnshaven accents, but Scottish accents nonetheless. And they were readily accepted.
Well, all of us at different points in our lives find moments where we're not accepted, where we're excluded, even rejected because of something beyond our control. Maybe it was where we were born. Maybe it's the language we speak. Maybe it's the color of our skin. Maybe it's where we work or where we live. But these kinds of things can easily divide people.
Jesus and his disciples were experienced in the same areas as people born in a time and place. They, being born in Palestine in the first century, certainly were rooted in their Jewish community and their Jewish origin. And that Jewishness also set them at odds with other people, including the Samaritans that we're going to read about in this passage this morning. It became quite clear that to follow Jesus meant that you would be accepted by Christ, but it also involved being rejected by others—and rejected not just because of long-standing ethnic divisions, but also rejected because of your loyalty to the Savior.
So let's read in Luke chapter 9, beginning in verse 51 through the end of the chapter. Here Luke writes, as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him. But the people there did not welcome him because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples, James and John, saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and the disciples went to another village. As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But this man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord. But first let me go back and say goodbye to my family."
And Jesus replied, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Amen.
We see in this passage very clearly Jesus and his disciples moving toward the end of Jesus' earthly ministry. I say that because verse 51 starts with this phrase, "as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven." Here, Luke is giving us a clear indicator that the ministry that Jesus has been doing in Galilee is about to change as he moves toward Jerusalem.
Because Jesus was on a timeline of eternity. His timeline was one that he had come to earth not to live a long and prosperous life here, but he had come to earth to live a life that would give a sacrifice that would be laid down for the price of sin. Jesus himself did not sin and was not tempted to sin, and yet he gave his life as a sacrifice for all of us who have sinned.
So, Luke is pointing to the fact that Jesus is now moving from Galilee and he's pivoting his life and his mission toward Jerusalem, where this sacrifice will be made. This is a sacrifice that will happen on earth, but he himself will be taken up to heaven because Jesus is no mere man. He is the Son of God, who, though his physical body may be put to death at the crucifixion, his divine nature will raise him again to life and he will conquer death and sin once for all.
Luke is pointing us this way because, really, beginning here in chapter nine, all the way through chapter 19, we see the events surrounding Jesus' move to Jerusalem. In some ways, you could call this a travelogue—that Luke is recording the events surrounding Jesus' journey as he made his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. And this is no ordinary travelogue. It's not a humorous travelogue like Bill Bryson, who I have enjoyed reading over the years. But this is a serious travelogue indicating how one ought to live in relationship to Jesus as Jesus lived in relationship to fallen humanity.
Here we have Jesus reminding his disciples that he has been accepted by his Father and that he accepts his followers, but in spite of their acceptance, they will be rejected. Just as my own children knew that they were accepted by Crystal and I and that they were loved no matter what, they experienced levels of rejection because of who they were associated with. Jesus is going to make it clear that ultimately his disciples would face rejection because of who they followed. So he wanted to prepare them for this, and he showed them that even he would experience rejection.
What's ironic is in this chapter so far, we've seen Jesus prepare the disciples by telling them to go out, to be his representatives, that they're authorized to do this. He even says that they have his power to perform miracles and to preach the gospel. And yet, even with that authorization, we see the disciples have faltered in this same chapter where they've struggled to do what he commanded them to do, even to the point that there were questions over their ability to cast out a demon because they did not trust God.
Yet Jesus, in his faithfulness and in his deity, revealed to the disciples who he truly was. Jesus showed the disciples that he was none other than God at the transfiguration and that through his identity he would empower the disciples to do their ministry. Yet the disciples still weren't catching it. They were thinking that Jesus' ministry was one of power and one of political accomplishment—that Jesus had come here to cast aside the burden of Roman authority and to lift up Jewish independence.
And yet Jesus is not on that mission at all. Jesus has told them twice in this chapter that, in fact, he has come to die, that his ministry would not be one demonstrated in political power, but that he had come to show the power of God unto salvation. Well, as Jesus is teaching this to his disciples and trying to help them understand that, he also wants to prepare them for the inevitable rejection that they will all face.
Jesus Responds to Rejection
And we see that in the first few verses of this chapter, where Jesus responds to rejection. And that's my first point this morning: that Jesus responds to rejection.
In verse number 51, we see Jesus resolutely setting out for Jerusalem, it says. This idea of resolutely setting out for Jerusalem can also be translated that he set his face toward Jerusalem. Another way we might say it in contemporary language is he had a steely resolve, a stiff upper lip, that he directed his face toward the mission ahead of him.
It's not unlike a warrior who's in the middle of a battle, who is caught in danger, and his demeanor completely changes. The jokes and the lightheartedness of the earlier moments when things were at ease have all disappeared. And now the intensity of a warrior appears and he is braced for conflict.
Here we have Jesus bracing for what is ahead, knowing that rejection will come in many forms and in many ways as he goes to do his father's will, but knowing that he will also be opposed in his attempts to do that. Jesus was en route to Jerusalem on his way to heaven. He knew that he must go to Jerusalem where he would die for sinners, but he would be raised again to be at the right hand of his father. So he determined that he would carry out his father's mission. There was no hesitation. There were no second guesses and no questioning. But Jesus came to do his father's.
Sending Messengers Ahead
Will. And now he directed his face toward Jerusalem to do this work. On his way there, he sent messengers ahead of him. This would be similar to event planners that were going out, putting feelers out for places to stay, accommodations that could be had, where food could be purchased and acquired.
And these messengers were probably some of the disciples, but not all of the disciples. Think of this as well, that in this ancient time, Jesus was traveling with at least his disciples, which was 12 other men. But more than likely, there was an entourage with them, that there was a group of people following Jesus. Because you remember, Jesus taught with authority. He performed miracles, and people wanted to be near that.
So as Jesus made his way into Samaria, he was not traveling undercover. He was traveling in plain sight and creating quite the scene. So these messengers going ahead had a big ask. As they went into a village, they were asking for accommodations for a lot of people. And there was no Holiday Inn or Motel 6 to welcome them. They would have been dependent on the hospitality of strangers, dependent on meals served by people, not restaurants.
And it was an incredible ask for them to come in and require this. As these men go, they're trying to get things ready for Jesus because the journey from Galilee down to Jerusalem would be at least a three-day journey by foot if one went straight through. But this journey would have required more than one accommodation. So as they went, they knew that this was going to be their task several times over.
The Conflict with Samaritans
In the first village, however, the report comes back that when the messengers went, in verse number 53, it says the people there did not welcome them. The Samaritans were refusing to welcome the disciples because they were on their way to Jerusalem, the Jewish epicenter of God's worship.
For centuries, the Samaritans and the Jews had openly opposed one another. They had competing centers for worship. The Jews worshiped in Jerusalem where Jesus was headed. The Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans resisted giving any Jews passage to Jerusalem because they did not want to enable their worship.
But more than that, the Samaritans despised the Jews. And the Jews, for their part, hated the Samaritans. Because of their long-standing hostility over centuries, any Jew that would be traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem would often travel around Samaria and go along the east side of the Jordan River, going well out of their way, but simply to avoid the conflict that existed between these two people groups.
The longer route allowed the Jews to avoid contact with the Samaritans, and it helped the Samaritans because they did not want to welcome the Jews anyway. Yet, when the disciples saw this, they knew the long-standing history between these two groups of people. But James and John's reaction is startling in verse 54.
The Reaction of the Sons of Thunder
It says, when they saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?" James and John wanted to utterly destroy the Samaritan village with fiery judgment. They were perhaps recalling what Elijah had done on Mount Carmel, that he had rained down God's judgment on God's enemies. But the disciples in this case were no Elijah, and they were overreacting to the Samaritans.
The prophets on Mount Carmel had rejected God and God judged them. These Samaritans were rejecting the disciples and their request for hospitality. They were not outright rejecting Jesus, but they were certainly being resistant. The response to judge them with fire and brimstone was certainly over the top.
Earlier, when Jesus had commissioned the disciples to be his representatives, in verse number five, he said, if people do not welcome you, then leave their town. Shake the dust off your feet and make that a testimony against them. Jesus just matter-of-factly said, "Move on." He didn't say judge them or rain fire down on them and destroy them. He just said move to the next village.
So as he prepared the disciples for rejection, he told them that this would happen. He didn't authorize them to be his agents of judgment. Instead, they were to be the agents of his gospel. They were authorized to preach Christ. But James and John's impulse here to summon down judgment ignored Jesus' prior teaching.
You may remember from Luke chapter 6, Jesus said this, and the disciples, James and John, all of them heard it. Jesus said, "But to you who are listening, I say, love your neighbors. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you." With all the history and bad blood between the Samaritans and the Jews, they could certainly be characterized as enemies and people that hated one another and people that were cursing and mistreating one another. And here, Jesus' words could not have been more clear that the response to that was to love them anyway. Thus, Jesus called for restraint and love of the Samaritans rather than judgment.
So in verse 55, he turns and rebukes the disciples. Instead of agreeing with the sons of thunder and letting them destroy this village, he rebukes them. He strongly disagrees with them and he expressed his disreproval. Rather than destroy these Samaritans with fiery judgment, Jesus corrected his disciples for their senseless anger and wrath.
Luke doesn't record the full conversation to say all that has happened and all that was said back and forth, but Jesus certainly put these men, known for their zeal and known for their even anger, in their place. They had been at Jesus' transfiguration. They had witnessed Jesus' miracles. They had heard Jesus' teaching. And they were amazed at his greatness. But these same men were also involved in a petty argument with the other disciples in verse 46 about who would be the greatest, about who would have the seat of honor in the presence of Jesus and God the Father.
And now these men wanted to demonstrate their honor and their greatness with fire and brimstone on behalf of their savior. But Jesus said no. Their desire to wield divine power was out of order. They were not authorized to direct God's judgment on the Samaritans or anyone else for that matter. Jesus had commissioned them and authorized them to preach the gospel and to offer salvation. And if they were not received, then they were simply to move on to a place where they were received. It would be God's position to vindicate Jesus, and he would do that himself without the help of the disciples.
Luke does not record James and John's response. He simply says, "Then Jesus and the disciples went on to another village." Jesus directed the disciples to do what he had instructed them to do in the first place. They went to the next village until they found people who would welcome them. Jesus did not let rejection stop him. He did not become vindictive. Instead, he continued his journey to the cross.
Jesus showed his disciples how to be gracious when people rejected him. He directed his disciples to show mercy toward their opponents rather than call for their instant judgment. Although many Samaritans would eventually face God's divine judgment for rejecting Christ, it was not the disciples' responsibility to enact that judgment here and now. They simply needed to move on and ask more people.
In fact, interestingly, several years later, after Pentecost, Philip, Peter, and John returned to Samaria and they preached the gospel from town to town. And it says in Acts chapter 8, many people believed in Jesus. In fact, in 8:25, it says this: Acts chapter 8, verse 25. "After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages."
Jesus showed this particular Samaritan village grace rather than divine judgment, and it multiplied the grace of God throughout Samaria. If Jesus had permitted these two men to destroy this village, then they would have undermined his future ministry.
It's always tempting to respond to rejection, especially when someone rejects our beliefs with harsh judgment against them. But we too must offer the message of the gospel with grace and truth. Jesus' ministry often leads to rejection. If Christ was rejected and the disciples were rejected, then we will also be rejected.
Our goal should not be to avoid rejection, nor should our goal be to create hostility with people who reject the gospel. Instead, our goal should be to preach the gospel and love people no matter how they respond to Christ. I think this is an important message in our time because more and more Christians are becoming antagonistic toward non-believers. All you have to do is get on the socials—and you can choose which social platform you prefer—and you will see open hostility from Christians toward unbelievers. And I would say that is the same kind of hostility that James and John were exercising here, and it is the same sin that Jesus rebuked James and John for committing.
The goal of a Christian is not to make enemies. We have enemies by default because we follow Christ as our Lord. Our goal is to declare the gospel and watch how people respond. Many times we don't share the gospel because we have the wrong expectations. We either expect everybody to accept Christ and say, "Thank you so much for sharing this with us," or we have the opposite extreme: we expect everyone to reject the gospel and send us on our way and consider us crazy.
But instead, we must freely share the gospel with any and everyone God brings in our path, knowing in advance that some people will believe and many people will not believe. Their response is not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to declare Christ, knowing that we will be rejected by some. Rather than take the posture of an internet antagonizer, we should instead take the posture of being someone who's deeply in love with Christ because we know him, and share him personally with other people.
Perhaps the most powerful way to share the gospel with another person is by sharing your own testimony of how God has worked in your heart and in your life to save you from your sin. Rather than coming from a position of condemnation and wagging a finger of self-righteousness of being "holier than thou," we should instead come as broken sinners, knowing like Paul that we are the worst sinners of all and that Christ has saved us anyway.
When we come with that kind of posture, the response is different. It's different because people see in us a genuineness and an earnestness that could only be explained by our commitment to this belief—that it's not something that makes us look better, it's something that helps us see how bad we really are. And when we understand how bad we really are, we come to see how sweet the gospel of Jesus actually is.
So here we see Jesus preparing the disciples for rejection, showing them how to respond to rejection himself. And he also challenges us in the same way. We should not be triumphant Christians in the sense that we are somehow better than other people. We should instead be humble Christians who know that we're worse than other people and that we need the forgiveness of Christ. And when we feel that love and acceptance that only comes through the forgiveness of Jesus, then we can endure rejection. We can respond to rejection with grace rather than hostility. We can respond to rejection with mercy rather than being vindictive.
In all of these ways, Jesus calls us to follow his example. And when people reject the gospel, we simply move on and we continue to share with more and more people. We don't give up, as some have, and said, "Well, we just live in a hopeless time and a culture that's set against Christianity." That same logic applies in every generation. Instead, we should say, we have the message of eternal life, the offer of forgiveness of sins, and we can share that with any and everyone that we have. And some will believe it, and God will be glorified.
As we respond to rejection, it's a reminder, and this leads to the second point, that Jesus calls for total commitment.
The Call for Total Commitment
Jesus calls for total commitment. Right on the back of this account, Luke ties in three people that approach Jesus. These three men, who are nameless in the narrative, illustrate three commitments that are necessary for following Jesus. Again, Luke, as he writes his gospel, is ordering things in a way that advances his argument and helps his readers understand they can be confident in Christ.
Confidence in Christ comes not simply by claiming a martyr's syndrome of saying, "Well, we've been rejected, therefore we must be of Jesus." But confidence in Christ in this context comes from knowing who Christ is and understanding the call to be totally committed to him. Luke uses these three men to teach or reveal three sayings of Jesus about discipleship. And these three sayings help us understand that being a disciple of Jesus does not allow us to pursue vigilante justice or to garner celebrity influence because we're Christians. No, it's just the opposite. The disciples of Jesus experience rejection, including opposition, because people are opposed to God. They are considered his enemies. We were considered his enemies, apart from saving grace.
So as the disciples continued with Jesus, moving from village to village through Samaria, it says they were walking along the road in verse 57. And as they walked, they encountered these men. It's interesting that the verb "follow" appears with all three men in verse 57, 59, and 61. And this "follow" parallels Jesus' call to the disciples in the first place when he said, "Come, follow me."
Well, the first man, it says, approached Jesus, and he said, "I will follow you wherever you go." Unlike the 12 who had responded to Jesus' call to follow him, this man offers to follow Jesus. He's eager. He says he'll do anything and go anywhere that Jesus would ask him to go. The man seems ready to join with Jesus and to get started on the mission. But Jesus knew the man's heart and he responded to his enthusiasm with a warning. Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
In other words, wild animals have places to live, but Jesus, God in human form, did not have a bed in his own home. Jesus, like Elisha the Tibthite and John the Baptist, trusted his heavenly Father to provide all that he needed, including places to rest. Jesus calls his disciples to trust him for the necessities of life, including where we live and sleep. If the Son of Man did not have a house to call his home and a bed to call his own, then why should his followers demand those things for ourselves?
Jesus promises to provide all we need when we follow him, and he is always trustworthy. This runs contrary to the health and wealth gospel that says following Jesus will make you wildly successful—that if you have enough faith, you'll become rich, you'll never get sick, and you will unlock God's best life for you now. That is exactly antithetical to what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying here that the cost to follow him is a life of uncertainty, a life where things may be fragile and may seem like you don't know what's going to happen next.
And yet Jesus also told his disciples to pray this: that God would provide your daily bread. We are so far removed from that in our context because we can buy enough groceries to live the rest of the year. In fact, preppers have enough groceries to live for multiple years stored somewhere in their basement or their bunker. But Jesus is making the point to his disciples and this would-be follower that the right response to Jesus is total dependence, not one of self-reliance that I'll do this all myself, but one of trusting him to provide what is necessary.
As we follow Jesus and we carry forward the gospel, we do so at his provision. Christian hospitality is an incredible gift, and it has provided the ways and means for the gospel to travel the world multiple times. Not because Christians are the richest people on earth with the biggest mansions, but because Christians are some of the most generous people on earth who welcome other Christians.
I was humbled several years ago on a trip to India to go into a small village. And when I say small, think of under 100 people in this village. And I was brought in there. I was the only American in this Indian context. I did not speak the local language. I did not know the people, but I knew that there was a church gathered there. And the pastor and his wife met my hosts who were driving me to this village on the corner of a busy intersection with a motorcycle, and we followed them. I had no idea where we were going or how it was going to work out. But when we got to the village where they led us, it was what you might imagine in a third-world context. People living in primitive conditions. Things were bleak in many ways.
And yet this pastor and his wife eagerly took me to a plot of land and said, through interpreters, "Would you pray for this land? This is where we want to build the church that we're starting in this village." And the plot of land was smaller than the stage that I'm standing on this morning. Yet their heart and their vision for ministry was such that they wanted that spot of land to be a place of worship for the one true God.
So I prayed with them. And then they took me to their residence, which genuinely was a hut. And in the hut, there was absolutely nothing except bare ground, metal siding, and a tin roof. And in the middle of the hut, they had prepared a little refreshment for me. They had given me a cup of juice and what I would consider something like an animal cracker, just a very simple cracker. And they had worked and sacrificed to provide that for me, who they didn't know from anyone. Because they said, "This man of God has come to our village to pray for us and to bless God's work here. So we want to honor him."
And friends, I'm here to tell you, I cried and I'm trying to hold back tears right now because I didn't deserve any honor. I didn't deserve for them to sacrifice. For us, it's nothing to offer someone something to drink and a little something to eat. But here they had genuinely sacrificed to do that. And why? Because they followed a God who provided all they needed and a God who would raise up the church in that village.
Jesus says that the cost of following him is a cost of following him and trusting him no matter what. But he also reveals in a second man who comes along that there's another layer to it. The second man comes to Jesus, but Jesus says to him, "Follow me." So instead of the enthusiasm of the first who initiated with Jesus, Jesus gives this man an invitation, but the man replied, "First, let me go and bury my father."
This man was making excuses where the first man had enthusiasm. Although his request seemed reasonable because it was his obligation to care for his father and to bury him properly, this second man was putting these obligations ahead of following Jesus. Because to become a follower of Jesus involves following a different set of priorities. And burying one's father, Jesus said, could be left for others to do. "Let the dead bury their own, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
This man could either leave his father and follow his heavenly father, or he could bury his earthly father and die apart from Jesus. Jesus' response probably seems harsh and unloving to us, but following Jesus requires total commitment, not a partial commitment. The man's father may have been alive at the time, and he wanted to delay following Jesus until after his death. But whether the father was already dead or waiting to die, Jesus insisted that the man would need to follow him immediately and completely.
And to drive this point home even farther, perhaps overhearing Jesus' conversation with the second man, a third man offers to follow Jesus, but with his own condition. He says, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family." Perhaps this man considered Jesus' comments of the second man to be sensible, but he wanted to show an even greater commitment. So let him go say goodbye to his parents.
But this third man was also wrong. He was reasoning that my family is alive, so I should at least go and tell them goodbye before I go with Jesus. But note, this same man is the one who approached Jesus and said, "I will follow you." But the third man's earnestness prevented him from becoming a follower of Jesus. Jesus replied, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
Turning back to our old way of life undermines our status as one of Jesus' disciples. A disciple's hand must stay at the plow, committed to the work, looking ahead for what's coming next. A person cannot plow a straight line while looking backward. The plow metaphor highlights the sacrificial commitment to Christ. Our loyalties cannot be divided between our families and our Savior.
Remember Jesus' words in Luke 8:21. He replied to people saying, "Here's your mother." He said, "No. My mother and my brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." Jesus expanded his family from merely flesh and blood and said his family included all who were committed to him and who followed the word of God.
Being a disciple of Jesus is not simply a gig, job, or a side hustle. It's not a social club or religious hobby for people who like theology. But being a Christ follower involves submitting to God and accepting his authority over every part of our lives. Jesus brings us into his family when we follow him, and he overcomes our enthusiasm, our excuses, and even our earnestness to make us his sons and daughters.
Jesus requires total commitment, not half-hearted devotion. We cannot follow Jesus partially or only accept the parts of Christianity that we like. When we believe in Jesus, we accept him on his terms and we follow him with our whole life.
We can gladly forsake our old sinful way of living, our bondage to sin, and we can pursue a new life in Jesus without holding anything back.
Jesus exhorted his disciples here to move forward. He had set his face toward Jerusalem. He refused to look back. And we must also look ahead for what God has called us to do. We must focus our vision on what comes next rather than obsess on what has already happened.
Looking Through the Windshield
It's not that we should dismiss history, but it is to say that what is coming next is more important. The gospel of Jesus always moves forward. It always reaches new people and it always builds the church.
One metaphor that I have used over the years is that as Christians, we are looking through the windshield of opportunity as opposed to the rearview mirror of history. The idea being a rearview mirror is helpful to give us context and even perspective, but the windshield helps us see what is ahead. And you can't drive a car forward by looking in the rearview mirror.
New opportunities to advance the gospel have often been stymied because people could not take their eyes off of the past. Perhaps they'll say, "But this is the way we've always done it. This is what worked in the past. Or we should have never stopped doing that those years ago. Or we used to have lots of people in our church when we did this or that." All of those things may be true, but they're not helpful because we want to be hopeful with what God is doing now and what God plans to do next. And we want to embrace God's loving activity to expand the gospel and kingdom even when people reject us.
So our mission here is not to be a church that puts a flag in the ground and says, "We are an obnoxious group of Christians and we don't care who hates us." There are churches like that. Instead, we want to be a group of Christians that gather because we've been humbled by the gospel. We're thankful for the work of Jesus and we're joyful in sharing it with other people, eager to see God save a new generation.
And we want to say, as Jesus said to the disciples, "Follow me." We want to also be able to say, "Follow us as we follow Christ." Since we have been accepted by Jesus, we can endure rejection. Jesus prepared the disciples for rejection because they had been accepted. Jesus called for total commitment because he gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins. There's nothing too little that he can ask us to give as well.
As we follow Jesus, our call to follow him is complete. It is total. It is not partial, and it is not something that we do on the side. Instead, Jesus wants all of us, all the time, to pursue.
Embracing the Call of Christ
Perhaps one of the reasons the gospel has faltered in our culture and in our generations is because we've not embraced the call that he gave the disciples here. Perhaps we have looked for more comfortable places to live than Jesus himself had. Perhaps we have cared more for our families than the family of God. Perhaps we have pursued our own agendas and set aside his agenda.
Jesus came to give his life to save sinners. And now we sinners who have believed Jesus and accepted his sacrifice can give our lives to invite more sinners to the glorious gospel. As we do that, let's watch God work. Not everyone is going to reject the offer of the gospel. Some are going to gladly receive it and he will add them to our church. Let's work toward that end. Let's pray to that end. And let's watch God do what only he can do.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider this, we pray with an optimistic heart, asking that you would work in our midst, in each of our lives individually, and then as families and as a church. And God, help us to be optimists for the gospel. Help us to know that we have been accepted by Christ. And that because of Christ, we can face rejection.
God, help us to be faithful to you no matter what. Forgive us for the times where we're fickle or where we become like James and John, where we can even become indignant at people who don't receive Christianity or people that oppose Christianity. God, instead, help us to be filled with your mercy and grace because you've showered that mercy and grace on us.
And help us to be a church that's known not for our hostility to the culture that you've placed us in, but help us to be known for our hospitality to sinners who you bring to us. And God, we pray that you would help us to declare the gospel and that you would be faithful to make people receptive to the gospel and that you would faithfully add them to your church and build the church to your glory. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.