title: stay focused on the kingdom text: luke 9:57- 62 theme: following jesus should be the most...
TRANSCRIPT
TITLE: Stay Focused on the Kingdom
TEXT: Luke 9:57- 62
THEME: Following Jesus should be the most important thing in the believer’s life.
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Folding Class
Stephen Covey, “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.”
1. Be Proactive- Have a personal vision for your life and act on it.
Stephen Covey, “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.”
1. Be Proactive- Have a personal vision for your life and act on it.
2. Begin with the End in Mind- Know what you want your life to look like when you have arrived.
Stephen Covey, “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.”
1. Be Proactive- Have a personal vision for your life and act on it.
2. Begin with the End in Mind- Know what you want your life to look like when you have arrived.
3. Put First Things First- Manage your time and priorities around the first two.
Kenda Creasy Dean, “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is
Telling the American Church”“… we seem to have offered teenagers a kind of “diner theology”: a bargain religion, cheap but satisfying, whose gods require little in the way of fidelity or sacrifice. Never mind that centuries of Christians have read Jesus’ call to lay down one’s life for others as the signature feature of Christian love (John 15:13), or that God’s self-giving enables us to share the grace of Christ when ours is pitifully insufficient.
Kenda Creasy Dean, “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is
Telling the American Church”“Diner theology is much easier to digest than all this …What if the church models a way of life that asks not passionate surrender but ho-hum assent? What if we are preaching moral affirmation, a feel-better faith, and a hands-off God instead of the decisively involved, impossibly loving, radically sending God of Abraham and Mary,”
Kenda Creasy Dean, “Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling
the American Church”“who desired us enough to enter creation in Jesus Christ and whose Spirit is active in the church and in the world today? If this is the case—if theological malpractice explains teenagers’ half-hearted religious identities—then perhaps most young people practice Moralistic Therapeutic Deism not because they reject Christianity, but because this is the only “Christianity” they know.”
How important should following Christ be for you?
II. It should be more important than having worldly security. (57-58)
Luke 9:57-48
“57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
II. It should be more important than having worldly security. (57-58)
A. Many say they want to follow Jesus.
Matthew 8:16
“That evening many demon-possessed people were brought to Jesus. He cast out the evil spirits with a simple command, and he healed all the sick”.
A. It should be more important than having worldly security. (57-58)
1. Many say they want to follow Jesus.
2. Many are unwilling to give up the security that may require.
Cassie Bernall, Colorado High School murder victim
Now I have given up on everything else
I have found it to be the only way
To really know Christ and to experience
The mighty power that brought
Him back to life again, and to find
Out what it means to suffer and to
Die with him. So, whatever it takes
I will be one who lives in the fresh
Newness of life of those who are
Alive from the dead
How important should following Christ be for you?
II. It should be more important than other desires and responsibilities. (59-60)
Luke 9:59-60
“59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
II. It should be more important than other desires and responsibilities. (59-60)
A. He implies the man’s father had not yet died- he is waiting for that to happen.
The Pun
“Let the [spiritually] dead bury their own [physical] dead.”
II. It should be more important than other desires and responsibilities. (59-60)
A. He implies the man’s father had not yet died- he is waiting for that to happen.
B. roclaiming the Kingdom of God supersedes temporal matters.
Three things that can hinder us from following Jesus
1) Personal Aspirations
Three things that can hinder us from following Jesus
1) Personal Aspirations
2) Family Obligations
Luke 14:26
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
Three things that can hinder us from following Jesus
1) Personal Aspirations
2) Family Obligations
3) Social Expectations
1 John 2:15-17“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abides for ever.”
James C. Collins, in his book, “Good to Great”
“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life….
James C. Collins, in his book, “Good to Great”
“it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.”
How important should following Christ be for you?
III. It should be more important than our family and emotional attachments. (61-62)
Luke 9:61-62
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
III. It should be more important than our family and emotional attachments. (61-62)
III. It should be more important than our family and emotional attachments. (61-62)
A. Family attachments often interfere with following Jesus.
III. It should be more important than our family and emotional attachments. (61-62)
A. Family attachments often interfere with following Jesus.
B. Just as a farmer must focus on an object to plow a straight row so must the disciple of Christ stay focused on obedience to Jesus.
Many lost people have the mindset that they will surrender to Jesus:
• When they feel the time is right
Many lost people have the mindset that they will surrender to Jesus:
• When they feel the time is right• When they finish sowing their wild oats
Many lost people have the mindset that they will surrender to Jesus:
• When they feel the time is right• When they finish sowing their wild oats• After they have taken care of certain things
Many lost people have the mindset that they will surrender to Jesus:
• When they feel the time is right• When they finish sowing their wild oats• After they have taken care of certain things• After they clean themselves up
APPLICATION1. Surrendering all to follow Jesus applies your our sexual lives. In today’s world many people identify themselves by their sexual passions- GLBTQ or straight, etc. As a follower of Jesus you are more than your romantic attractions or sexual desires. You are more than someone attracted to the opposite sex or the same sex or whatever else is on the list.
APPLICATION
1. You are created to be a child of God, a servant of the Lord Jesus, a world-changer and a history-maker in Him—and it is Jesus who tells us that the first step we must take in following Him is not to affirm ourselves but rather to deny ourselves. As a follower of Jesus he is your identity and passion.
APPLICATION2. New life starts but by the total and complete surrender of our entire lives to Jesus, giving Him the absolute right to do whatever He desires with us and to work whatever He desires into us (or out of us). As one theological dictionary expressed it, “Following Jesus as a disciple means the unconditional sacrifice of his whole life . . . for the whole of his life. . . . To be a disciple means to be bound to Jesus and to do God’s will (Matt. 12:46–50; cf. Mark 3:31–35).”
C. S. Lewis
“Until you have given up yourself to Him you will not have a real self.”
APPLICATION3. The contemporary Canadian value system that begins with, “It’s all about me,” which means that right and wrong is largely determined by how I feel about it. And then we weave the gospel into this, which is one reason we are in such spiritual error and deception today, not just in the area of “sexuality” but in so many other ways as well.
APPLICATION
4. The contemporary “gospel” proclaims, “Jesus came to make you into a bigger and better you! Jesus came to help you fulfill your dreams and your destiny!” Put another way, “The gospel is all about you!” Jesus on the other hand says, “It is all about following Him.”
Richard S. Halverson, the former U.S. Senate Chaplain
“You're going to meet an old man [or woman] someday down the road—ten, thirty, fifty years from now—waiting there for you. You'll be catching up with him [or her]. What kind of old man are you going to meet? He may be a seasoned, soft, gracious fellow—a gentleman who has grown old gracefully, surrounded by hosts of friends, friends who call him blessed because of what his life has meant to them. Or he may be a bitter, disillusioned, dried-up old buzzard without a good word for anyone—soured, friendless, and alone.”
Richard S. Halverson, the former U.S. Senate Chaplain
“That old or woman man will be you. He'll be the composite of everything you do, say, and think—today and tomorrow. His mind will he see in a mold you have made by your beliefs. His heart will be turning out what you've been putting into it. Every little thought, every deed goes into this old man.”
Richard S. Halverson, the former U.S. Senate Chaplain
“Every day in every way you are becoming more and more like yourself- amazing but true. You're beginning to look more like yourself, think more like yourself, and talk more like yourself. You're becoming yourself more and more. Live only in terms of what want out of life and the old man gets smaller, drier, harder, crabbier, and more self-centered. Give your life utterly to God and others, think in terms of what you can give, your contribution to life, and the old man grows larger, softer, kindlier, and greater.”
If we make following Jesus the priority of our life everyday then the old man or woman we become will
look more and more like Him.
