Deterrents to Discipleship

Father, we thank you for today. What a joy it is to honor and to worship your precious name. We thank you, Lord, that we can gather together on this Lord's day and focus on you. With all the distractions that come about each and every day throughout the week, there's a brief moment on the first day of the week that we gather to focus everything upward.

Our prayer today, Lord, is that we would see Jesus and that, Lord, we would understand your word. That, Father, we would be the kind of followers that exemplify all that your word states and that you'd be honored and glorified in our lives. Take your word today, Father, to convict us of our sin. Take your word to comfort us amidst turmoil. Take your word, Lord, to transform us into the kind of people that you would like us to be, people that reflect your image. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. This morning, we find ourselves at the end of Luke chapter nine.

It's been a while since we've gone through this chapter and it's taken us quite a while to tackle every section in Luke chapter nine. We've learned a lot about our Lord and this section today will teach us even more about our Lord and the demand he requires in following him. This morning, we're going to read to you the last few verses of Luke chapter nine and help you understand the deterrence to discipleship. What keeps people from following Christ? What are the barriers that Christ puts up when people want to follow him?

It's hard to imagine that Christ would erect a barrier when people would say, I would like to follow you. But that's exactly what Jesus does. He purposefully puts up barriers because he doesn't want people to be superficial. He wants them to be real followers of him. And so let me read to you what our Lord Jesus says to three individuals who have made a decision to follow Christ.

And you will note that after Christ confronts them, they decide that following him is not what they bargained for because the text gives us no conversions. It tells us nothing about what took place in their lives, leaving us to believe that they decided that following Christ was a lot more than they thought it was going to be. This account in Luke chapter nine is also recorded in Matthew chapter eight. In Matthew chapter eight, there are two individuals. Luke gives us a third individual.

In a moment, we will show you chronologically where this, this section fits because Matthew puts it chronologically. Luke does not. The reason Luke doesn't do that is because Luke is looking to train or show us how Christ would train his disciples. Luke is helping us to understand what the disciples needed to learn in order to be effective proclaimers of the gospel. But Matthew gives us the chronology. Matthew tells us that it was in Galilee around Capernaum that this happened. In Luke's account, we are in Samaria or around Samaria, outside of Galilee.

So we know that Luke doesn't put it in chronologically, but Luke injects it because it's a part of the summary of the ninth chapter. Let me read it to you.

It goes as follows. Verse fifty-seven. And as they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. And he said to another, follow me. But he said, permit me first to go and bury my father.

But he said to him, allow the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God. And another said or also said, I will follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home.

But Jesus said to him, no one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. This section is about following Jesus. Three times the word is used. First man says, I will follow you wherever you go.

Jesus says to another man, follow me. And another says, Lord, I will follow you. So the word follow is the operative word. What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? And what hinders people from being true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ? When Christ called people, he called them to follow him. He called Matthew in Luke chapter 5. Matthew was a tax gatherer outside of Capernaum. And Jesus went to Matthew and said, Matthew, I want you to follow me. Matthew got up, left his tax table, never to return again.

In Mark chapter 1, it was Jesus who saw Peter and Andrew. They were mending their nets. And Jesus said to them, follow me. And they, as Mark says, immediately left their nets and followed him. Soon after that, he saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They were with their father. And Jesus said to James and John, follow me. And the Bible says in Mark chapter 1, that immediately they left their father and followed Jesus.

We read those stories, we brush over them, but they help us understand a little bit about what Jesus says in Luke chapter 9, verses 57 down through verse number 62.

Jesus asked the rich young ruler to follow him. He would not. Jesus asked one of these men to follow him, but he would not, because there was something more important to him. Others would profess to follow him, but when push came to shove and Jesus began to question their motives, they in turn would not follow. Philip, Nathaniel were called to follow, and they did. Others were called, and they did not. Seventy-seven times in the Gospels, akalotheo is used. It's used here in these verses in the present imperative, helping you to understand that following Christ, listen carefully, is not a one-time decision.

It's a word that implies continuity. It's a command not to follow today, but to follow always. It's a continuing following. It's not a following today and then not following tomorrow. It's a command that implies continuity from this day forward. Jesus never asked anybody to follow him for a day or a week or for a while. He asked them to follow him for life, and that's implied in the word akalotheo. When you follow me, it's forever, no matter what. And his disciples, Peter, James, John, Andrew, and those among the twelve understood that.

The problem with us today is that that's just not typical. We tend to look at coming to Christ as an event.

We tend to look at Christ as saying a prayer. It is interesting that Jesus never called anybody to say a prayer when it came to following him. The man of the kingdom said, I will follow you wherever I go. And Jesus didn't say, well, then pray this prayer. He never said that. Neither did the apostles, by the way. It is true that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That is true. That you are to confess Jesus as Lord in order to be saved. But nowhere in the Bible did Jesus ever pray with somebody or the apostles ever pray with somebody when it came to their following him.

Isn't that interesting? Someone comes to our church and they say, I want to follow Jesus. Who said that? Let me get a card.

Sign the card. Pray a prayer. Let's begin the follow-up. As if that's what it means to be saved. To be a follower of Christ is not about a decision that you make or an aisle that you walk or a prayer that you pray or a card that you sign. We live in a day of emotional events, don't we? We love to play on people's emotions. We'll come to the end of a service and we'll play an organ or play a band or something to get people to come and we'll just sing verses to get people to come or go to some crusade and hundreds of thousands of people will get up and walk an aisle and there will be an emotional response to following Jesus.

But Jesus never wanted an emotional response. He wanted people to come to grips with the reality of their eternal destiny and to make sure that they made a decision that would last forever. They had to come to a point of wretchedness, of spiritual bankruptcy, of poverty that would make them cry out in desperation, Lord, I need to follow you forever. He would bring them to that point. Jesus, when he asked people to follow him, he asked them to follow him for the rest of their lives. When you come to follow Christ, it's about repentance.

Repentance always requires severance. Severance. Severance always results in obedience and obedience always reinforces allegiance. That is what salvation is. It's repentance, severance, obedience, and allegiance that lasts forever, not for a while or for a short time. And when Jesus presented the gospel, he made it difficult for people to make that decision. We tend to make it easy for people to make that decision. Jesus never did that. He erected barriers, self-denial, repentance, cross-bearing, leaving father, mother, brother, sister.

He would begin to erect all these barriers because he didn't want people to make a superficial decision. See, he wanted people to make a deep, deep commitment. He wanted them for life. He wanted them to understand the high cost of following him. There's a record of Christ's invitation in John chapter 6, verse number 35, when it says, except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink the blood, his blood, you have no life in you. You got to eat the flesh of the son of man and you must drink his blood.

People were saying, this man is weird. He has gone over the top. Jesus says simply, you either take all of me or you have none of me.

You take all of me, you embrace all of who I am, or you have none of me. Today, we experience people who are described by the great author Wilbur Reese, who describes them this way. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of God to make me pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. We just want a bit of God. We don't want all of him because if we embrace all of him, it requires a transformation of all that I am. We're not so sure we want to do that. And that's what Jesus describes here in verses 57 down through verse number 62. We have three would-be followers of Christ. People who have seen his miracles. We know that because Matthew's account, Matthew chapter 8, tells us the sequence, the chronology of what takes place. And they have seen the miracles.

They have heard the message. They have come to understand his character. They have seen the greatness of the crowds who follow him. They are enamored with the Christ. And they want to be a part of what everybody else is a part of. They too want to jump on the Jesus bandwagon and follow him. But Jesus wants lifetime devotion. That's why we spent so many weeks on Luke 9, 23. Because Jesus said, if any man come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross daily and follow me. That's what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Self-denial, self-sacrifice, self-submission. Those things are an absolute requirement to be a true follower of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Many people today, they just want to make a decision. But just because you made a decision one day to follow Christ, listen, doesn't mean you're a Christian. We tend to think that there was a period of time I believed. Or there was a period of time I prayed a prayer. Or there was a time I made a decision, thinking that that somehow makes me a Christian. Christianity is not temporal, nor is Christianity seasonal.

You know, at Christmas and Easter, we have all kinds of people who like to come to church. Christianity is not seasonal. Or people who come because there's a tragedy. Remember after 9-11, there was a whole influx of people that came to the church because they were scared. They were looking for some kind of solace, some kind of comfort. So they began to flock to the churches. But when the tragedy began to wear away out of our minds, we ceased coming to church. Christianity is not seasonal. It's not temporal.

Christianity is not even on Sundays. Just because you're here on Sundays doesn't mean you're a Christian. I know hundreds. I know literally thousands of people that go to church on Sunday. But they're not Christians. Just because you went to church doesn't mean you're saved. Coming here to Christ Community Church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to Burger King is going to make you a hamburger. It just doesn't work that way. You've got to give your life forever to Jesus. And Jesus Himself would begin to erect these barriers because He wanted people to understand this is not temporary.

This is not for a while. This is not when you feel like it. This is forever. Every moment of every day of joyously coming to me and living a life of joyful self-denial, self-sacrifice, and self-submission. That's what Jesus said. All you have to do is read the Gospels to understand how He presented the truth of the Gospels or the truth of the Gospel. So here were three would-be followers convinced of the miraculous power of this man Jesus. Convinced of His authority. Convinced that never there was a man who would speak like this man.

And we begin with the first one to help us understand deterrent number one. The Bible says, and as they were going along, now the they is important.

Who are the they? It includes the 12. It probably includes the 70, which we will see next week in verse 1 of chapter 10. So there's at least 82 of them. Plus these three would make it, if you're good in math, how many? 85. Good. But there were others according to Matthew's account. Remember that the followers of Christ fell into one of three categories. There were the curious, there were the committed, and there were the counterfeit. There were the forgiven, there were the fascinated, and there were the false.

False. Those three categories summarize the kind of people that got on the bandwagon and were followers of Christ. And so one of them perks up and says, and as they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Now, think about that. Wherever you go. I mean, can you imagine that? I will, that's like your wife saying, honey, wherever you go, I will follow. Wow. Every guy wants a wife like that. Sometimes you begin to lead her down the wrong path and she's not too eager to follow, is she?

This man says, I will follow you, Jesus, wherever you go. The question was, who is this guy? Matthew's account says that it was a scribe, a scribe, an interpreter of the law. So you can imagine the kind of reaction, especially from the disciples. We got somebody who's up in the religious echelon. We got somebody who's a scribe. And this scribe comes to Jesus and says, you know what? I've heard your sermons. I'm a rabbi. People follow me. I'm a teacher. And rabbis would have people follow them all the time because that's what they do.

They would walk around teaching people and they would have their disciples and they would follow them around. And this scribe decides to follow Jesus around. He says, this man can teach like nobody's business. This guy's an, this guy's incredible. I want to be a follower. I'll follow you wherever you go. I mean, you teach like nobody else has taught. You have great authority, authority over demons. You're able to heal the sick and raise the dead. I'm going to follow you wherever you go. Like, wow.

This guy's a scribe. If we can get a scribe saved, if we can get a scribe, if we can get somebody in government saved, just think how it'll transform the government. If we can get somebody in the, in the entertainment world saved, just think how it would transform the, the entertainment world. Or if we can get somebody in athletics saved, how it'll transform the world of athletics. It just doesn't work that way, folks. It's not that way. There was a scribe, an interpreter of the law who says, I will follow you wherever you go.

In fact, in Matthew, he's going to call him teacher. Teacher, didoskalos. Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. You are an amazing preacher. Man, you can really teach the Old Testament like nobody else I've ever heard. I'll follow you where, wherever you go. Here's, so here's a highly educated rabbi and interpreter of the law, a scribe. Here's the one who comes and says, I want to be a part of what it is you're doing. I want to follow you. Wow. What would we do? What would we do if somebody who was in our minds, one of importance came through the door of our church and said, Oh, let's just, let's just say it was president Obama.

And he came through the door and said, I want to follow Jesus. What would you do? Would you have erected an erect, a barrier to determine whether or not he was true? Or would you say, Oh, praise the Lord. Call your friends. Obama was at our church and he wants to be a follower of Jesus. What would you do? Well, let me tell you what Jesus did.

You can read it. Jesus said to him, pray this prayer after me. That's not what he said. You know, what'd he say? The foxes of, have holes in the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Now, what kind of response is that? The eager person who wants to follow Jesus. Well, see Jesus, unlike you and me knows the hearts and minds of people, doesn't he remember way back in John chapter two, verse number 23. It says, now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, beholding his signs, which he was doing.

But Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them for he knew all men, and because he did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for he himself knew what was in man. See, Jesus knows his heart. He knows what's really in the heart of this individual. So he erects a barrier to determine whether or not this man truly wants to come to him. He erects the barrier, not necessarily for the scribe as much as it is for his disciples to understand how to help people come to grips with following him.

Did you get that? That's so important because the disciples probably had to be scratching their head. Foxes have holes. Yes. And the birds of the air have nests. Okay. We understand that. But the son of man has no place to lay his head. Jesus says to him, you want to follow me?

Foxes have holes. Well, we know that there's lots of foxes in the land of Israel. The birds of the air have nests and boy, they knew about birds. We know from today that there are a half a billion birds that migrate right through the land of Israel every year, a half a billion birds that is so prominent in Israel that they have learned to change all of their flight patterns based on the migration of birds in the land. Because there have been more pilots killed by birds than in warfare. Did you know that in the land of Israel?

Because they're everywhere. And so when Jesus talks about birds, boy, they know birds. That's why when you read Revelation 19, all the birds come and what do they do? They eat all the flesh of all the unsaved dead who Jesus kills when he arrives back to set up his kingdom. And all the birds come and they eat the flesh of horses and the flesh of men. Why? Because it's all got to be done away with. But all those birds, when called by God, they already know where to go because they go every year the same way.

See, they know where Israel is. So Jesus says, birds have nests, foxes have holes. The Son of Man has no place to lay his head. You follow me, you might end up homeless. I'm sure I wouldn't do that. If you follow me, it's not going to be very comfortable. See, a scribe is used to comfort. He's used to goodness and kindness. And Jesus says, you know, you follow me, might not even have a place to lay your head.

Remember last week, they went to Samaria and Samaria wouldn't let them in. So where'd they sleep? Outside. In Nazareth, they didn't want Jesus. They rushed him out of the synagogue to throw him off the precipice there in Nazareth. Couldn't sleep there, that was his own hometown. And there were many villages, the land of the garrisons. Remember when they went across after calming the storm and they landed in the land of the garrisons and there was a man who was demonic and he came running down the hill naked with demon possessed and Christ cast the demon out of the guy and you think they at least offer him a room for the night, but no, they didn't want to stay there either.

Follow me, there might not be any place for you to lay your head. You might be homeless. Jesus says, if you follow me, I can't promise you a palace.

I can't promise you power. I don't promise you possessions. What I do promise is simply this, I promise you problems. I promise you persecution. I promise you pardon from all of your sins and with that pardon comes peace because now you're no longer in enmity with God and one day you will experience paradise and my presence and receive the prize that I have for you. But in this life, I don't promise you anything except pardon and peace. That's it. And problems and persecution. See how he erects the barrier?

Are you still serious? Do you still want to to follow me? You still want to be a part of what I'm doing? This man was according to Matthew 13, the rocky soil. He would jump on the Jesus bandwagon and receive him with joy. But when facing problems, adversity, and persecution, he would fall away and Jesus knew that. And that's why he responded the way he did. Deterrent number one is materialism.

Materialism. Jesus said in Matthew 6, 24, you can't serve two masters. You can't serve God and money too. You can only serve one of us, not both of us. John would say, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For if any man has the love of the world, he doesn't have the love of the Father in him. Materialism is a deterrent. It keeps people from following Christ. They want to be a part of something that will afford them something greater than what they already have. And when it doesn't give it, then they renege on their commitment.

Because it truly had no root. It truly had no fertile ground. It was not fixed permanently to follow Christ no matter what. Deterrent number one is materialism.

Deterrent number two is, is passivism. Passivism. Verse 59, he said to another, follow me. Now, Jesus makes a statement. Now, whether there was a great pause, they're walking along the road, they're going along the road. There's a throng of people with them. We know there's probably at least 85. There's probably more than that, probably 200, 300, 400 people. Remember, there were thousands of people that followed Jesus wherever he went. They were all over the place. He's walking around and someone says, Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go.

And I'm a scribe and I'm a teacher of the law. And teacher, you are a great teacher. I will follow you wherever I go. Man, this is a scribe. He wants to follow Jesus. Man, this is great. And Jesus says, well, foxes have voles, birds of the air have nests.

Son of man has no place to lay his head. Imagine the crowd. What kind of sermon is that? Maybe there was a long pause. Jesus goes over and says, hey, you, I want you to follow me. He bids him to come out of the crowd. I want you to follow me. Well, the guy he asked to follow him heard the discussion. He heard the conversation. So he has a response. He says, permit me first to go and bury my father.

Okay. What's wrong with that? That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Poor guy's dad's dead. He ought to at least go bury his dad. I mean, wouldn't that be sensitive on his part? Wouldn't that be the right thing to do if your dad dies to go bury him? Of course it would. Problem is, his dad wasn't dead yet. How do we know that? Because if his dad was dead, he wouldn't be there. Because in Jewish custom, you bury the dead the day they die. Okay. And because they don't embalm the body, they wrap it in spices.

He would have been home preparing the spices and the wraps to wrap his father to bury him that day. He wasn't dead yet. So Jesus responds. Listen to this. Jesus says, allow the dead to bury their own dead.

Sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it? Kind of insensitive on Jesus's part. Allow the dead to bury their own dead. Well, I need to bury my father when he dies. Jesus is saying he's not dead yet. And you're going to be traveling with me. You're not going to be anywhere around when your father probably dies. If you're going to follow me, you're not going to be around when your father dies. Permit the dead to bury their own dead. A dead person can't bury a dead person. What kind of comment is that? Come on, Jesus.

Well, it's the spiritually dead. Let the spiritually dead bury those who die physically. Let those engaged in the temporary world do the temporary things. But you follow me and preach the kingdom of God. You follow me. I want no rivals. No rivals. You see, the phrase he used is a Middle Eastern phrase used still today. It's a phrase that says, I will stay home, take care of my family and my father, so that when he dies, I will collect his inheritance, and then I'll follow. It's a phrase used in the Middle East today to describe the fact that I will care for my father so that when he dies, I can be the collector of his inheritance.

So this guy over here is listening to Jesus' comment about foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, and the son of man has no place to lay his head. And this guy's thinking, well, you know what? I can follow Jesus if I stay home long enough for my dad to die, collect the inheritance, and then when Jesus doesn't have a place to lay his head, at least I can buy him a room in the inn, and he can have a hotel room with me side by side. Maybe doors that connect to the rooms. He's thinking, man, if I can just collect the money, I'll be set.

It doesn't make a difference if he doesn't have a place to stay. I'll have a place to stay. I'll have the comforts. I'll have the money I need to follow. But see, the deterrent was passivism. Not today. Tomorrow, when I'm more well off, I'll follow you. When things are a little bit better, I can follow Jesus. When I finally get my act together, I can follow him.

When I finally have enough money, I can follow him. When things are better in my family, I can follow him. But not now, Jesus. Not now.

And that's why Jesus would say over and over again, he would raise the barrier, the deterrent, that would question your loyalty to him. That's why in Matthew chapter 10, he said these words, not think that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father. And a daughter against her mother. And a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And the man's enemies will be the members of his own family. His own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who has found his life shall lose it. And he who has lost his life for my sake shall find it. And then, of course, over in Luke 14, it was Jesus who said these words. 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. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

I want no rival affection. I want all of you. You must see me as the most treasured gift there is. You must want me more than anything. If you don't want me more than anything, I don't want you. That's what he's saying. You must be committed to me. You must be willing to say, you know what? I will follow you no matter what. Despite not having comfort, but having problems and persecution, I will follow you despite not having any money, getting any inheritance, having any safety net. I will follow you no matter what, Jesus.

So important. Charles Spurgeon said these words, you are only young apprentices at present. And when your time is out, you think it will be early enough to attend to matters of soul interest. Or you are only journeymen at present. And when you have earned sufficient money to set you up in business, then will be the time to think of God. Or you are little masters and have just begun business. You have a rising family and are struggling hard. And this is your pretense for procrastination. You promise that when you have a competence and can quietly retire to a snug little villa in the country and your children have grown up, then you will repent of the past and seek God's grace for the future.

All these are self delusions of the grossest kind. For you will do no such thing. What you are today, you will probably be tomorrow. And what you are tomorrow, you will probably be the next day. Unless a miracle happens. That is to say, unless the supernatural grace of God shall make a new man of you, you will be at your last day when you are what you are now, without God, without hope, and a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel. Procrastination is the greatest of Satan's nests. In this, he catcheth more unwary souls than in any other.

Passivism. Not today. Permit me first to do this. And then I will follow you. That's why the Bible says today is the day of salvation.

Deterrent number one, materialism. Deterrent number two, passivism. Deterrent number three, sentimentalism.

Sentimentalism. Another also said, I will follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home.

Lord, I'll follow you, but I got to go home first to say goodbye. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? I'm going to follow you, Lord, wherever you go, but I got to go home and say goodbye to everybody first.

And what does Jesus say? He says, no one after putting his hand to the plow when looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. He says, I'm not like those guys. I'm not materialistic. I'm not a pacifist. I'm ready to go right now.

But first, I got to go home and say goodbye to mama. I got to go home and say goodbye to papa. I got to go home and say goodbye to brothers and sisters. He wants to go home. Jesus says, don't go home.

You know what they're going to do? They're going to tell you, you're crazy. They're going to tell you, you snapped the twig. They're going to tell you, you're off your rocker. They're going to tell you, you're a fool to follow me. Don't do that. No man, he says simply after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. He knows a man's heart. He knows that once he begins to follow, he's going to look back because sentimentally, he's back home. He really wants to be with his mom and dad.

He wants to be with his family. He doesn't want to make that break, that all out break that says, Lord, whatever it takes, I will follow you. I am yours a hundred percent. I recognize who you are. I am wretched. I am sinner. I am bankrupt. I am nothing without you. Therefore, I'm giving everything I have to you, Lord. I'm going to follow you wherever you go because you are my God. You are my savior. You are my deliverer. And I'm going to throw it all on you, God. You are mine. And all I want is you.

Jesus knew his heart. No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom. It's all about the kingdom of God. It's all about entering into the kingdom of God. It's all about getting into the kingdom. You're not fit for my kingdom if your love and admiration is for your family above me. Now, we know that God doesn't want you to hate your mom and dad, even though Luke 14 says, if any man come to me and hate not his father, mother, brother, sister, he's not worthy of me. It's not literal hate where you go and say, I hate you, mom.

I hate you. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about a rival affection that will keep you from committing solely to him because your heart is torn with your family. He goes, I want to have all of you, not a part of you. I want all of your affection. I want all your adoration. I want all of your devotion. I want it all. And that's what following me encompasses. It's a denial of self. It's a taking up your cross daily and following me. It encompasses every single part of you. I need to have it all.

I want it all. If I'm not going to get it all, I don't want any of it. I want it all, Jesus says, because I died for you.

I died for not just part of you. I died for all of you. And that's why when Matthew was at the tax gatherer's table and Jesus said, Matthew, follow me. When he got up and left, he didn't look back. He wasn't going back because he knew that once he left, Rome would put somebody else in there. He couldn't go back. And we know that when James and John left their father, they didn't look back because they weren't going back. And when Peter and Andrew left their business, they weren't going back. They were committed to following Christ no matter what.

Though none go with me, still I will follow. Amy Carmichael said it this way. I hear him call, come follow. That was all. My gold grew dim, my heart went after him. I rose and followed, that was all. Would you not follow if you heard him call? It all depends on how valuable he is to you. Are you a follower of Jesus? Or has materialism, passivism, and or sentimentalism kept you from committing your life to be a follower of Jesus? Are you a follower of Jesus Christ, the King of the universe? Let's pray.

Our most gracious heavenly father, we are grateful for today. And we are grateful that your word is true. And we are grateful, Lord, that you, you know our hearts. We do not know them. You know us better than we know ourselves. And yet you have beckoned us to follow you. I pray that everyone in this room would be committed follower of Jesus Christ. That if there's any hindrance, any deterrent in their lives, any barriers that are there, that they are not willing to cross for go, for you. I pray that you'd rip them out of their hearts.

They would be sold out to Jesus only. Lord, you truly are great. May we see your greatness and follow you wholeheartedly in Jesus name, amen.