Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 20 – May 1986

 

Committed Τo Christ

 

Sermon by Rev. G. van Schie on Luke 9:57, 60, 62

Reading: 1Peter 2:13-25, Luke 9:51-62

Singing: 118; 459; 463; 465; 493.

 

Just what does it mean to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ?  What does it mean to be committed to Christ?

In our text we find a man who is enthusiastic for Christ.  A person who in following the Lord was not a member of what you could call the inner group of disciples.  When Jesus went through the land preaching the Word of God, preaching the Kingdom of God, we find that not only did He have twelve disciples following Him but He also had a close group far bigger.  Remember, seventy were sent off to preach the gospel.  Seventy were given power to cast out demons and to heal people of their diseases.  There were more than just the twelve, even though of course, the twelve were special.

Besides the seventy there was even a bigger number of people who followed Him to listen to what He had to say and to witness all the miracles that He was doing.  We often read of crowds of thousands who came to hear Christ.  And they didn’t just go to hear Him once.  We read of thousands of people who would go right across the Sea of Galilee to the other side to just get to hear Him again.  He was pursued time and time again by this large band of disciples.

Now this man mentioned in our text must have been one of those on the outer fringe.  Someone who was still mingling with the crowd in general.  Someone wanting to hear what Jesus had to say to find out what he had to do.  This man now becomes enthusiastic and he says, “Lord, I will follow you wherever you go!”  Here was the desire to commit himself.  It’s great that we see that sort of desire recorded in Scripture.  It’s great when we see it in our own church!  It’s great when we see it happening in the world, people having this desire to follow the Lord wherever He will lead them.

Yet we must be aware of what this commitment really entails, what is involved.  Jesus, knowing the man’s heart realized he didn’t take into account the consequences of what he said: “Lord I will go with you wherever you go!”  Not just to some places, but I will go with you wherever you go.  It doesn’t matter where, but I will follow you.  And Matthew tells us that the man was a scribe and a scribe in Israel was not used to a hard life.  A scribe in Israel was a well-stationed man, he was used to comforts.  He was used to luxuries.  And so we see Jesus not accepting straight away this man’s desire to follow Him, but Jesus placing reality before him.  We have in Scripture many accounts of those who with enthusiasm committed their life to Christ in different ways and yet failed.  You only have to remember Peter himself, Peter the disciple, promising the Lord that he would never fall away from Him, “Lord even if everybody else leaves you I will never fall away, I will stick with you even till death.”  There was the enthusiasm of Peter, the heartfelt desire to commit himself wherever Christ would lead him.

We find that sort of thing going on in the church today too.  People enthused for Christ, going to a meeting of some sort, perhaps an evangelism meeting or a crusade and how many times it happens that on a wave of enthusiasm, in an unreal atmosphere, even at a camp, they feel compelled to commit their life to Christ.  Those of you who have been to a Christian camp like the family camp, you know what it’s like, you’re isolated from the world and you go onto a spiritual high, things seem very unreal.  All sorts of commitments can be made in that environment.  So many people today make commitments for Christ only to find that it means far more than what they expected.  As soon as Satan knows that any sort of new life has begun in a person we can be sure, as Scripture tells us, that is the place Satan is going to be fighting the hardest.  He works on those he does not yet have and he works on those who are still weak and immature, let alone on those who are strong in Christ.  And so the seekers of the Lord and those who have newly found Him especially come under strong attack.

So many have expected a bed of roses, “Now I have accepted the Lord, the King of Glory, He who has all this power, surely everything is going to go right for me in life.”  That’s why you hear it so often, even among Christians, when someone they love is taken away in death, when someone they love is crippled, when disease strikes, whatever, so often the question is asked, “Why Lord?  Aren’t we your children?  Why this sort of suffering?”  So often we live in an unreal world of expectations with regard to what it means to follow Christ everywhere.

So we find the Lord, in His mercy and grace, not only towards this man but also towards this Church today even as we’re gathered here this morning, telling us to face reality.  Don’t follow Him as you conceive what being a disciple means.  Don’t go according to what you expect, don’t paint for yourself a picture of what it means to be a Christian but face the facts of Scripture.  Look at the picture that God Himself draws of what it means to profess faith, of what it means to follow Him.

To bring the man down to reality Christ spoke of where He was going.  In our reading in Luke 9:51 we read this: “As the time approached for Him to be taken up to Heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”  We must ask ourselves brothers and sisters, what came between His travels towards Jerusalem and His going up to Heaven?  What had to happen between these two things?  We find the Scriptures tell us plainly.  Christ was arrested, Christ was put on trial and Christ was crucified.

“I will go with you wherever you go!”  This man said it to Jesus as Jesus was going to the cross.  He was God Himself in the flesh, God having taken to Himself humanity.  God humiliated for us, in order to save sinners.  Suffering!  And He didn’t just suffer on the cross where He cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”  He didn’t just suffer the agony there of being forsaken of God but He suffered all through His life.  You only have to put the Gospels together and we find He was continually being rejected.  He was rejected by His own people in Judea, even to the point that He said that a prophet is not welcome in his own city.  He was cast out of Galilee.  He was begged to leave the area of Gadara where He had cast out that legion of demons which went into the swine.  Instead of the people being thrilled with the healing that took place in that man possessed, they wanted Jesus to leave.  We find in the reading just before our text, that the Samaritans didn’t want Him to live or dwell in their village as He was on the way to Jerusalem.  And finally, on the cross, with Rome representing the world, we find that the world rejected Him.

All through His ministry, He did not live as a person who had a fixed address; He lived as a hobo, or probably as in our Australian culture we would say, a swagman.  He went from town to town, village to village and He needed to do so, not only because He was rejected from place to place but there were always those new cases of need.  “Lazarus had died, come to us Lord.”  “My child is sick, come Lord, lay your hand upon her or him.”  And there was the cripple who needed healing, there was a demon-possessed man who needed to be liberated.  So from place to place He went healing.  Yes, there were those times that He had to keep on the move because of the crowds that were following Him.  We have a few recorded instances where Jesus got into a boat to flee from the crowd only to find that the crowd was waiting for Him on the other side again.  We read of that time when being so tired that He fell asleep in the boat, even in the midst of a raging storm that threatened to sink the boat, the Lord was so exhausted He slept.  Of course, there was that time, and others, when He confronted Satan head on, times of temptation, times of struggle.

“Lord I will go with you wherever you go!”  That man didn’t realize what he was saying.  So Jesus sets him right with just a simple saying.  When we take a look at Luke 9:58 we have Jesus reply; “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the Son of man has no place to lay His head.”  Mere creatures of the animal world like foxes and birds, I tell you man, these have a lodging place, these have a place where they can go and have peace and rest, but I tell you, the Son of Man, God in the flesh, has no place for rest.  He has no place to get away from it all.  He is continually in conflict with Satan.  He is continually meeting the needs of others.  He is continually on the go.  What a commitment!  Lord, I will go with you wherever you go.

Brothers and sisters, in our comfortable Australian setting, with our easy way of doing things, we too can make the same sort of commitment to the Lord.  “Lord, we will follow you wherever you go.”  From our pews in the church, to our comfortable cars, to our armchairs at home, we will go with you wherever you go!  But do we really know what we are saying?

In our first reading it was made clear, “for this purpose we have been called that as Christ suffered, we should follow in His footsteps.”  Not just the Church in His day but the Church in all times should be prepared to suffer even as Christ suffered.  Look at the example that’s given there.  The example of slaves in relationship to their masters.  Peter, there, was addressing the situation where slaves were complaining about being harshly treated.  Well, says the Lord through Peter, what credit would it be to you if you put up with harsh treatment and you deserved it?  What have you been pilfering, what have you been stealing from your master?  What if you haven’t been giving your best in work?  Yes even the best of work was expected from a slave by the Lord.  Even if your master is a harsh master; someone hard to get along with, someone unreasonable, it makes no difference, you are to give your best.  If you are caught out doing wrong and you endure it, so what, you deserved it.  You deserve the suffering you receive.

But this is what is commendable before the Lord, says Peter, that you are willing to be patient, that you are willing to endure hardship when you don’t deserve it.  When your master wants to punish you for something you didn’t do, instead of answering back, instead of giving him less than what you should, continue to give him the best.  And entrust yourself to God that He will glorify you, that He will give you your reward.

Now let’s face it brothers and sisters, that is completely contrary to the teaching of this world, and I’m quite sure that most of us here would have nothing to do with that sort of thinking.  Well, if somebody does something wrong against me, I’m going to fight back.  But the moment we think like that and the moment we act like that we are no longer following Christ.  For this purpose we have been called that as He suffered we should follow in His footsteps.  Like a lamb silent before its shearers He did not open His mouth.  When provoked on the way to the cross by soldiers who mocked Him, He remained silent.  With the scorners around the cross who hurled abuse at Him He prayed, “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

If you think that’s impossible for man to pray in the midst of that sort of crisis, you’re wrong, because Stephen, when being stoned for Christ’s sake prayed exactly the same.

Therefore we must beware of understanding commitment in terms of where we would follow Christ, rather than where He would lead us.  We must avoid saying, “So long as it doesn’t involve any sacrifice, so long as it doesn’t involve any hardship, so long as we can follow Him easily and with joy and with pleasure.”  Jesus made it quite clear we are called to follow Him wherever He goes.  That even means to take up our cross till death!  Who would be prepared to forgo the easy lifestyle that we have?  Who would be prepared to give up the luxuries they have now for the Lord if they were convinced that the Lord was calling them to some special work?  Who would be prepared to die for Christ, today, if it were required?  Who is so committed to the Lord?

In Russia it’s happening all the time.  In the early Church it happened all the time, and any day it can happen in any part of the world including Australia.  “If you follow Me you must go with Me everywhere!”

For the person who is seeking Christ, the Lord calls you to realize what commitment is about.  You should have nothing in your life that you would rather hold on to than Christ.  You must be prepared, if He calls you to do so, to give up everything.

And for those who have professed faith, the Lord calls us to remember what it is that we have professed.  “He is my Saviour and my Lord.”  Not just the One who has saved me but the ruler of my life, my Lord.  I no longer live for myself but in everything I do I seek to live for Him and nothing that I have I count as my own but I declare, I am but a steward entrusted with these gifts.  Commitment!  Being bound to Christ, not just with a part of our life but with all of it.

Yes, brothers and sisters, it can be said that a congregation that is truly committed to the Lord is a congregation that is not going to have problems with finding Calvinette and Cadet counsellors.  It’s not going to be a congregation that has a problem with finding Sunday School teachers.  It’s not going to be a congregation that has trouble finding elders and deacons.  Where people are really committed to the Lord, ready to follow Him everywhere, they are willing to serve.

“I will go with You wherever You go”, and the Lord says, “Follow Me”.  But don’t follow Me in your strength.  Follow Me with the grace that you have already received.  Remember, I with great determination set My face for Jerusalem, with total obedience to My Father.  I was crucified.  By grace you have been saved and by grace you will also serve.  Follow Me with My strength.  And that’s exactly what Hymn No. 465 (Psalter Hymnal) speaks of where we have the question “Am I a soldier of the cross?” It ends with a prayer in verse 4:-

            Since I must fight if I would reign,
            Increase my courage, Lord;
            I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain,
            Supported by Thy Word.

Not supported by our efforts, not supported by mankind but supported by the Word.  Not just the Word written but also the Word Who was incarnate, even Jesus Christ.  “I will bear all these things, I will follow Lord, as You work and live in me.”

And so, brothers and sisters, let us all be mindful of the commitment the Lord calls us to make, if it has not yet been made, and also of a commitment that we have made if already we are professing members.  Not in order that we gain eternal life but because, in Him, we have received it and therefore as we sing from time to time that our whole life will be a life of praise, let us also pray that He will work through us to ensure that it is a life full of praise, not lived for self, but lived for Him alone.

AMEN.