First Things First

Proper 8. Luke 9:51-62

Transcript

And I feel like I need to say it and reiterate it. Today I say, peace be with you, because I want you to know what kind of posture and position I am approaching you with. It is with peace and love that I'm going to say the things that I feel the Lord has convicted me to say this morning to his people. You are his church, you are his bride, and I come having the burden, having the stole of the burden of Christ to speak to you on his behalf, that he has something he wants to share with you by way of his gospel, a lesson that he would like to teach you. And sometimes these are words that are hard to hear, because if you're like me, you might be stubborn.
You don't receive all the words that you are told. And like me, you might not like to hear hard things. You just want things to be easy. But sometimes that's not reality. Oftentimes that's probably not reality.
And the lesson I have before us this morning, something that the Lord has laid on my heart, is a vision that I hope to cast for years to come here at Fairview Methodist Church. There is something that I'm actually trying to do behind the scenes. There is a rhyme and a reason why we ring that bell to start our worship. There's a rhyme and a reason to why I do announcements and instructions and then we engage in worship. There's a rhyme and a reason why we light candles.
There's a rhyme and a reason why you stand and you sit and you kneel while we confess sin. And why we should be responding when we read the call to worship with greater enthusiasm than we often do.
I'm trying to build a culture. I'm trying to build the kingdom of God right here amongst us. Because that's what the scriptures declare, and that's what we are about to see that Jesus is calling us into. Now, the words that Jesus say might seem insensitive, but they're not. They're very fitting.
And what we are going to learn this morning is how to put first things first in our lives. How to orient your life towards a kingdom, not towards the world. When you step through these doors into this house of God, into this city of God as it will come to be known, it should be otherworldly. You should feel like you have just left something and come into something other, something greater, something richer, something glorious, something worth singing about, even if you can't sing like me. And that's what our lesson begins with.
Our lesson begins with Jesus, Luke telling us that there is this moment in Jesus ministry where he begins to turn his face. That's the language that he uses that he turns his face towards Jerusalem. Now on this side of the cross, this point of history, we know what lies ahead for Jesus in Jerusalem. His sacrifice, a cross, his beating, his death, his resurrection and his ascension. That's what awaits Jesus.
And in his ministry he's been going here and there, but now Luke tells us his face is determined and is set on Jerusalem. So everything moving forward in the Gospel of Luke is going to be about Jesus being resolved to the end game. That's what Jesus is doing. And it is that very thing. Jesus own resolution, Jesus own resolve to head to Jerusalem and not to stop and wait, but to continue on till he gets to the end game.
That becomes the standard that he's going to apply for everybody who wants to follow after him. See, when you turn your face to something, this is what I liken to. When I ran cross country in high school, I was a big kid. In order to lose weight, I ran two years of cross country. I was very slow, but I set my mind and my face to the finish line.
When I heard that trigger pull on that gun and the race began, I turned my face towards the finish line and I moved. I didn't walk, I didn't sprint, but I maintained pace to get to the end. I'm also like this when we move from house to house. When we enter into a new house, we box up everything in the old and then we offload it into the new house. And I don't sleep and I don't stop until the toothbrush is put in its holder.
The, the towels are up, the sheets are made, the beds are made, the pictures are hung. Like I turn my face to those moving boxes and it's go time. I don't stop until we're in the new house, completely and fully. This is the same idea of Jesus turning his face towards Jerusalem. He goes to accomplish the will of his Father and that through accomplishing the will of his Father, when his work is complete, he goes and ascends back to his Father back home.
That's what Jesus is doing. And right after this we get this narrative. After we learn that Jesus is now his face is now turned to Jerusalem, we now get this narrative of three people that we encounter who want to follow after Jesus. Now we know that following after Jesus is going to Jerusalem, but it's very telling. Jesus is teaching what discipleship, what following him truly means.
And these are going to be some hard words to swallow because you're going to think Jesus maybe is too harsh, but I don't think so. Let me point out to you that what Jesus is calling the journey and the life of a disciple, the one who follows after Jesus is ordered by putting first things first. When I was a supervisor at a juvenile treatment facility with troubled teens, when we had to read a book called 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And it was a good book, it was a clear book, one that I could understand. And it had these points that you have to begin with the end in mind, that effective and healthy people begin with the end in mind.
They start their day with how they plan to finish the day. If you want to ride a bike, then you buy all the parts and the pieces and assemble the bike so that you can, at the end, have a bike to ride. You begin with the end in mind. And one of the other seven habits was this. Put first things first.
The idea and the goal is to orient your life in a right and proper order of putting first things, the most important things first, ahead of every little thing. Because it's usually that first thing that you need to accomplish that's the biggest thing and will help you accomplish everything else. And it's this that we learn is the life of those who want to follow after Jesus. Jesus meets these three individuals who want to follow him. And he, basically summarizing him, says, you got to put first things first.
The question is, well, what's the first thing in the life of a follower of Jesus? What is the first thing above all things in the life of a believer? Well, let me present to you these three characters that we meet that want to follow Jesus. The first one is the person who wants to follow Jesus. And he says, jesus, I will go anywhere and wherever you go.
And Jesus replies, foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head. That's it. Two verses, plain and simple. What is Jesus talking about? What is Jesus referring to?
The guy says, he'll follow you anywhere or everywhere you go. And Jesus response is, well, then follow me into homelessness, follow me into poverty, because I don't have anywhere to stay. So if you follow me, you got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. But it's more than that. What Jesus is implying is that right now he doesn't have a place to rest his head because he is busy about doing the work and the will of his Father.
But once he accomplishes that work, where does he ascend to? Back home. So what Jesus is informing one that wants to follow him everywhere he goes is that it's going to start with discomfort and poverty, but it is going to end in complete comfort and prosperity and riches untold. That's the life. But in order to gain that life, you have to put first things first.
You have to journey from this world and into the kingdom. And as this journey takes place, as you leave this world behind and embrace the new life of the kingdom, you are going to begin feel like you have nothing because you're leaving the world behind, that you don't have a home, that you're homeless, that you have nothing to your name because Jesus said, you're leaving that behind. Drop it. Put it down. Follow me.
You'll begin to experience that. But the longer you follow me, you'll see that I'm leading you through all that into the kingdom. So we learn right off the bat to put first things first is to put the kingdom first, to leave everything else behind and to put your face towards the kingdom. And that, that transition, that process is going to feel like homelessness. It's going to feel like poverty.
But you're no longer a citizen of this world. You're a citizen of the kingdom of God. If you believe and trust in Jesus Christ, and if you're going to follow him, you're going to have to let the world, the things of this world go bear the weight of that. I don't know if some of you already are beginning to say, like, does that mean this? Does that mean this?
Or does that mean this? Because there's a lot of things that I don't all have a hard time letting go. I'm not here to dictate everything to you in your life. I'm just saying that is the standard of following after Jesus is the setting aside and laying down what this world offers, everything in order to get everything that the kingdom is going to offer.
Dave Ramsey says it best. I'm not a huge necessary fan of Dave Ramsey, but there's one phrase that every, every once in a while I'll tell Melissa. And when we're getting in a bind financially, I'm like, well, I guess we got to live like no one else so that we can live like no one else, right? That's his catchphrase. Dave Ramsey, if you want to have financial peace, says, you got to live like no one else now means maybe you don't get to eat at McDonald's.
I think he says all the time, you don't get to drive brand new cars right now like everybody else is doing in order to get rid of your debt and then start storing up money so that when you have money and you have financial peace, you can live like nobody else who lives in debt. And that's the concept that Jesus is applying here. You live like no one else. You're homeless in the world right now in order to live like no one else in the kingdom.
The second person wanting to follow Jesus, Jesus says, come, follow me. The guy says, first, allow me to go and bury my father. And then Jesus says something that at the surface might seem very insensitive. He says, let the dead bury the dead. But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
Well, Jesus, burying your father is an honorable thing. Jesus, you tell us and command us to honor our father and mother. Why in the Sam Hill would you tell us to not bury our father, but to go and proclaim the kingdom of God? It will only take a couple days and then. Can't I get on with you?
What is Jesus implying? What is Jesus saying? What is Jesus meaning? What does it look like to follow him and to put first things first? I think it's in his phrase, let the dead bury the dead.
You see, that means not just a dead body, that actually means spiritually dead. Let the spiritually dead bury the spiritually dead. See the world in all its deadness experiences death. And the only thing they can offer someone who's dead is bury them and return them back to the dust from which they came. But Jesus says, if you follow after me, I'm going to give you words of life.
I'm going to give you kingdom words. And these words are going to recreate you. They're going to cause you to be born again. And these words are going to give you brand new life so that when you return to the dust, you will live again. So if you want to go bury your father, you come and follow me right now.
You put first things first. You go and proclaim the kingdom, which is the very thing that can give hope to people who are dead. If you would like to see your father again, well, hey, proclaim. Go and proclaim the kingdom of God and you will find that you can bring life to the dead. That's what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is saying, let the dead bury the dead. They don't have anything to offer. But what you can do is right now, follow after me, put first things first and come and follow me and I'll give you the words to life. And then you can go back and you can give life to your dead dad.
That's what Jesus is doing. That's what Jesus says that we can do if we follow him. Following Jesus means we get to proclaim the kingdom of God to others, bringing life to the. To death to the dead. But you have to put first things first.
You don't go and bury the dead. How about go and bring life to the dead? Start following Jesus. That's what you're going to be led to. He's going to give you life.
That's of utmost importance to him. Then we come to the final person. This person is to me, one of the most telling, because this is something I often struggle with. The third person says he will follow Jesus, but wants to be allowed to go and say his goodbyes to the people back at home. And Jesus says that anyone who begins to plow in the kingdom but yet looks back actually is not fit to be in the kingdom.
It's like Jesus, chill out. Like, I can't say goodbye to the people at home. It's very radical, Jesus. And you might think that way unless you get over yourself and you start thinking like Jesus, who is actually very loving and kind and gracious and he's showing you that. Would you like to not ever have to say goodbye to your people at home again?
See, in this world, the concept of goodbye exists because of death and separation. Think about that. But in heaven, in the kingdom of God, there is never a goodbye. There is never any separation. There is only ever unity and forever living.
There are all of us, family, that is constantly together, celebrating, living in the kingdom. And so what he's offering what Jesus is offering, that if you come and follow me right now and you go and build and prepare a place of the kingdom where you can invite those loved ones into to where you'll never have to say goodbye again.
There's a Beatles song, maybe you know, you've heard of it. I was singing it this morning and it is pretty catchy. It's called hello, Goodbye. You guys remember this? And the catchphrase is, I don't know why you say goodbye.
I say hello. Hello, hello. You know, it just keeps on going, right? That was free. That was free of charge there.
But it gets catchy. But that's exactly it. I don't know why you say goodbye. I say hello. Hello, hello.
That's what Jesus is calling his disciples into. It's a journey of putting first things first. It is better to begin building a life where you forever get to say hello and never have to say goodbye. It's a life that moves you from poverty to true richness. It's a life that if you follow and put first things first, which is the kingdom of God, then you can bring life in the midst of death and family, chaos and strife and all that thing.
You can actually make a difference if you put the kingdom of God first. Following Jesus means we leave this world behind so that we can begin to plow the land of the kingdom. We where you don't have to say goodbye, you just simply say hello and welcome.
So put first things first. But if you just take those three scenarios, if you just take those three, there's a couple things that if you just stand back and watch and listen to the responses between these people that want to follow Jesus and what Jesus says, if you just stand back and, and you couple them all together, you begin to learn that you don't need to take this personal.
Every one of those situations has to do with what those people wanted to do. I have something going on in my life, something I would like to do. Let me go do it. Let me go do my thing, then I'll join you in your thing. That's not what Jesus calling us to.
He says, don't make it personal, make it communal. Make it about the kingdom first. This is what we learn from his responses, that God does care for your personal life, but the solution to your personal life lies in the greater work of the kingdom. To truly see your personal life transformed for the better, you must first seek the kingdom of God. It's less about you and it's more about Jesus and what he's trying to build and accomplish.
And if you put that first in your life, you're going to find all sorts of things trickling down into your life that you personally care about, and they're going to be transformed. Excuse me, transformed for the better.
We put first things first, and the first thing is the kingdom.
Thinking about that last one, Thinking about that, him wanting to return home and say goodbye to his loved ones, and Jesus saying, no, come and follow me. Go and prepare a place. This has a really practical application for anybody who has ever been estranged from your own children, who has ever had discord among family members, who has ever experienced a divided home? What do you do in the midst of those situations? What do you do if you're estranged and have broken relationships in a broken home?
What can you do in the meantime as you await unity and reconciliation? Jesus says, what you do is you don't say goodbye. You come and begin building the kingdom. You come, begin to orient your life towards the kingdom. Proclaiming the kingdom message in your home, getting your life right so that when that opportunity arises for reconciliation and unity to have and reunification and all that to come and actually be reality, that they have a home, a kingdom to come and live into, where they don't have to say goodbye ever again.
You put first things first so that you can resolve those family matters with the proclamation of the kingdom and then offer them unity and togetherness finally in a place that will always exist for them.
We put first things first because Jesus put the kingdom first. That's what it means for his face to be turned towards Jerusalem. We know what that means. He goes to accomplish access for you to be brought into the kingdom. In order to be brought into the kingdom, then he has to afford to you the forgiveness of that sin, since you've been offensive with your life against God.
And when Jesus, who sacrifices himself on the cross and is resurrected from the dead and ascends on high back home, he grants you access into the kingdom if you follow after him and believe in him. So that's why the kingdom should be first in your life. Because it's exactly what Jesus purchased for you to have. He doesn't purchase you. He doesn't want you to live what you think is best for your life.
He has demonstrated, shown you, and declared to you what is best for your life. And you got to live for the kingdom in order to better understand the concept of the Kingdom of God. Because we can use those phrases, and to some of us it might just sound very Christianese. The Kingdom of God, that's a great concept. I'm not talking to you this morning about a concept.
I'm talking to you about a present reality that Jesus affords us if we would put the kingdom first in our lives. And I think a better way to maybe understand it is what I refer to as a city of God. If you think about the city, the city is the place where everybody travels to, to go to concerts. There's singing, right? There's art galleries, there's culture, there's fine dining.
There's people that make reservations and who get dressed up to go to the city. And they arrive at time, on time for their reservation because they want a fine dime in the city. The city closes down streets in order to have festivals. The city has a culture, it has a politic, has an economy. And these are very real, tangible things about the Kingdom of God that I want to refer to as the City of God.
And that is exactly what, what we are called to begin doing here in Fairview this is how I opened up the sermon is to convince you through the scriptures that Jesus invites us to follow him, but that it's going to be a journey of putting first things first. And that first thing in your life has to be the kingdom of God, because you put that first. Then everything else that you're concerned about, like your family at home, like your dead dad, all those other things, not having a place to live, all of those things will be taken care of if you put first things first. So we have to commit ourselves to this idea and this reality of the City of God. So what does that look like, Bruce?
Bring it home to me. What does it mean to be a city of God here? Well, just the very means by which I described the city. There's a culture that we have here. There's music that we do here, there's language that we speak when we recite to one another.
There's festivals that we have. There's a calendar that we orient our life to, to celebrate the life of Christ and all that he's done for us. We celebrate Advent and Lent and Easter and Pentecost because this is the calendar of the city.
We make reservations throughout the week to be in the city and we dress accordingly. We make it robust and we commit to it because there's no other place out in the world that we ought to be because we're putting first things first. It's the kingdom life. You know, it wasn't too far gone or too long ago where the church, the City of God, actually influenced community life in the town and in the cities. The churches used to be the center of city town life.
The doors were opened, the town was inside, and when the church was shut down and sent out, they carried that city out with them into their homes.
When I was in youth group, the transition was beginning from on Wednesday nights we had youth group and we didn't have to struggle with practices, with sports, because nobody had practices, at least in the south, on Wednesdays. Why? Because the church was gathering. Made no sense. Nobody would show up to practice because the church, the city, was gathering and they were gathering to hear the word of God.
There used to be a point in time when everybody just understood, you go to church and you bring your Bible and you bring your attention, you bring your open ears and your open heart to receive what God is going to speak to you today. But somehow in our modern day culture, we've transitioned to where now what dictates the City of God is what the world schedule is like, what the world's calendars. We can't do youth group on Wednesday nights because we have practice. And if they don't practice, they don't get to play the game on Friday. I'll never forget one of my good friends in youth group.
I wasn't good at sports, so that didn't really apply to me. But my good friend was a great athlete. He went to school and there were things that he played sports. And we had a youth weekend coming up, and that was right around sectional time, big games. And he was led to forfeit those big games to go.
And that weekend was one of the greatest weekends of his life that really transformed his life.
But we don't do that anymore. We are so greatly influenced by the world. The world now tells us what's better. Worship for us. You can go to church and you can have a great band and great music with very little meaning words in it.
We have the mega churches put up light displays that are bigger than our annual budget here. They're spending more on stage production. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to just so they can entertain you with lights and shows. The world influences is telling us if you want to grow people and bring people in, you got to make it look really good.
And it's my hope and my desire as your pastor and as a shepherd that just has to lead and serve you, to encourage you to really embrace this culture of the city of God, that we actually have the power of influence, not them. The world is passing away, but the kingdom of God is going to stand. And any work that we commit for the kingdom of God will last forever. And it's a reality we can begin to experience presently. Right now, we can go out those doors, taking this culture that we're trying to build here and begin to transform the lives of our homes and our schools and our communities to where I would like to see again that when church is going on, the.
The schools and its city and the towns are shut down and are in the church. That's what the Lord is leading us to do. Put the kingdom first.
And when you put the kingdom first, not only are you committed here, but you're also committed to the home. You're committed to using the language of the city and bringing it into your home. You're not just showing up on Sunday and trying to thumb through what. What is the liturgy. I need to learn this.
But we don't even practice it at home. And so when our kids come here on Sunday, all they learn is something new. It doesn't feel like family because we don't do this in our family. This is weird. Why is church like this?
I've started already implementing some of these things. The reason why I dismiss the kids after the lectionary is because it's extremely intentional. I'm very intentional with everything I do is because I want. If they're not going to get anything at home, if we're not going to practice at home and prepare to be a part of the city on Sunday, then at least when they come to the city, they're going to know how the Lord has taught us to pray. They're going to know what it is that we believe.
They're going to learn how to respond with scripture, they're going to learn the doxology and, and this is the starting point that we have given Bo, my son, my six year old. I've taught those things intentionally to him because I don't want him to feel like he's a stranger while the rest of us recite the things. I want him to feel like he's a part of the City of God and he can celebrate in the city. We need to be teaching the church's language in our homes. Not only that, but when we come and gather as the city, if it's not for yourself and if it's not for the love for which you should have for Christ, would you do me a favor as a dad and show up with a smile on your face so that my son can know that there is no greater place than to be here with you all on Sunday?
I tell him that at home. I say, do you know what tomorrow is? Tomorrow we get to go to the City of God and we get to be with God and his people the best part of the week.
And I will be frank. And then he walks in here shaking his hands in excitement and then watches you all, which I want him to watch you all to learn how to worship, sing like this, respond like this, not participate in worship.
If you understood why we have that call to worship, and I've mentioned it, it's a representative of Christ and his bride speaking back.
It ought to sound like this. As Christ says, preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in you. And his bride responds, I said to the Lord, you are my Lord, I have no good besides you. That's how we do the call to worship. And that's how Beau and all the girls and all the kids learn what the City of God looks like, that they celebrate.
If we don't have a posture of celebration and be in a city together, then these kids are going to learn that this is not the place I want to be. They're more excited out there. That's fun out there. These people are ho humming here.
They don't commit. Why should I? They're not hungry for the Word. Why should I be? And I'm just offering that as a challenge.
Don't kill the messenger. Because that's what Jesus is saying. If you want to follow me, then you have to follow me into the kingdom, because that's where I'm going. And this kingdom does things not what you think it does, but what my God, my Father, says. And that's what we do, why we do everything.
I would like to build a city of God right here in Fairview, and I would like it to begin right here. And I think we have already begun. But I don't want to do it alone. And I don't want to be the only lead to build a culture here. I genuinely think that if you put everything into the kingdom of God your whole entire life, what are you going to forfeit or lose?
If you oriented your whole life around following Jesus around, learning his word. So we can be instructed on how to build this city, then we can begin to feed the town out here. And just like a city does when it grows, it consumes the suburbs and the small towns around. And those suburbs and small towns begin to look like the city. We, too, as a city of God, can begin to stretch out into our homes and into the areas of influence we have in our lives and transform them.
Now it's real with real people, with real tasks, with real actions, with real ministry.
And if that doesn't sound really appealing to you, if the city of God is not something that you look forward to, then I don't have anything else for you. Because that's all I would like to be about. And it's not even about me. These are the things I've come to be convicted of by God sharing his word with me. And that's exactly what I'm going to try to move you into when we meet for our annual meeting every year is how can we look more like a city of God?
And how can we expand out our territory here? How can we feast and love and celebrate and sing and have a culture of the city of God? How can we turn our face to the kingdom of God, the city of God, and not look back and plow its fields and take fruit from its harvest? How can we transform our communities? It has to first begin here, with our worship, the way we worship and the way we spend our time together, we build it up in here until it busts out the seams and it's exposed to the world.
And we proclaim the message of the Kingdom. And we invite them in to tell them hello and welcome.
We don't have time to look back at what might have been or how we could have done things differently. We don't have time to explain to others why we might start looking different. We don't have time to wait for those who are undecided about Jesus. We have to put first things first. We have to build the City of God.
We have to first seek the Kingdom, and then everything else will fall into line. We need to start building the city right here, right now, in Fairview. We have to stop making the world our first priority and start today making the Kingdom, the City of God, a reality here and now, today. As your shepherd, it is my duty to equip you for this task and to encourage you to put first things first. Everything I am seeking to lead you in is for this end.
We worship the way we do because we worship in the City of God.
We participate in the ministries we do for our community because that's the ministry of the City of God. So I would lead you to consider your priorities. I would lead you to consider what you are putting first in your life. And I would lead you to consider putting the City of God always first, especially if you're following King Jesus.
Let me close with this. I wrote up something this week, and it's your bulletin because I wanted anybody who would come in to know a little bit about who we are. So this is what I At Fairview, we don't gather to be entertained or to have our preferences met. We gather to be shaped together as the City of God. Scripture tells us that those who believe in Jesus are being built together, not into isolated spiritual lives, but into a holy city, a dwelling place for God.
When we come together in worship, we become a visible outpost of heaven on earth, a city where God dwells with his people. See, even the world gets that. Our government has embassies all over the world that are outposts to where any citizen in the United States can venture into and be safe. The world gets that.
So if anything, this is an embassy of the Kingdom of God. And anybody who comes here can experience the presence of God and be a part of his kingdom. Each Lord's day, our service follows a covenantal renewal. We recommit our lives to live in Christ, for Christ and with Christ. The shape of our liturgy is confession consecration, communion and commission, which guides us through this process of renewal.
Worship is not a performance by a few up front. Instead, our service leads the people to work, which means liturgy. Through spoken responses, singing, standing, kneeling as able sitting and reclining at the table, our bodies get involved because we present our whole selves as a living sacrifice. In spiritual worship, we believe God is building his city not only in worship, but through the daily lives of his people. That's why we embrace the Methodist way of life.
Methodism emphasizes personal and social holiness, the transformative power of the Holy Spirit and the pursuit of sanctification as a real and ongoing work in the believer's life. It holds together head and heart, doctrine and discipline. We are committed to living out our faith, not just in word, but in deeds, learning to love our neighbors better as we live to love God more. By walking in the Spirit, we are not aiming to look like the world, but to live as a city of the new heavens and the new earth, lit by the presence of God. Welcome to a city of God.
Welcome to Fairview Methodist.
Would you help me make this place a city of God? Let's pray.