Hard Sayings of Jesus: Let the Dead Bury the Dead

It's always a moving moment for me at the Gordon Connell graduation where I was yesterday. And it's the moment in the graduation ceremony when they always ask first the spouses of the graduates to stand and then the children. And as they stand, you know that's the group that has walked the journey with the graduate so far. A journey that is often quite difficult. Many of the students working full-time jobs, yet going to seminary and carrying full loads, preparing themselves for the cause of Christ and the service of Christ.

And many of them leaving that graduation to then go to fields of service or places of service with their families that will be difficult, costly, not easy places of service. It always causes me to pause and reflect how much do I love Jesus Christ. And I love being around these students who go with the notion, it's all on the table for Christ. There is nothing held back.

Let's read a passage, Luke 9.

Luke chapter 9

starting at verse 57

where Jesus Christ is headed toward Jerusalem where he will pay the ultimate sacrifice and then has these encounters As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus replied, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head. He said to another man, follow me. But the man replied, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead.

But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Still another said, I will follow you, Lord, but. I will follow you, Lord, but.

First, let me go back and say goodbye to my family. Jesus replied, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service. of God. This passage was the subject of debate at the Rogers household last night over supper. In our debates about theological matters, we don't hold much back. It's my prayer this morning as I teach this lesson that I will remember those words of Screwtape, that senior demon who C.S.

Lewis writes his words in the Screwtape letters and Screwtape says to Wormwood, the young demon who's supposed to trip up a Christian, Screwtape gives him advice, encourage all extremes except

extreme devotion to the enemy who for Screwtape is God. encourage all extremes except extreme devotion to the enemy. If I fail to do it, let me make it clear right now. There is nothing

more important than extreme devotion to Jesus Christ. And if I soften that in this lesson today, please forgive me. because it is my press today to help us understand that Jesus wants and deserves extreme devotion. Well, there are three little vignettes in this passage that help us answer the question, how are we to respond to the call of Christ on our lives? That's the question.

And there are three sort of mini parables in here. True stories, but they have a parabolic sort of sense where we're supposed to learn a lesson from each of these little stories. The first lesson that we are to learn in the first little story is that we should count the cost before we begin the journey with Christ.

the story is right there in the text there's a gentleman who makes a big promise i will follow you wherever you go did you hear that i will follow you wherever you go no limitations whatsoever on the following if we know from matthew's account of the parallel passage that the one who said i you go was a scribe. One of those teachers of the law who comes and professes that he is willing to go wherever Jesus calls him to. And Jesus knows that this scribe has a lifestyle, most likely, that's going to make it very difficult for him to do whatever he wants to do. As a scribe, he probably had a pretty good standard of living. As a scribe, he probably had a pretty comfortable home.

And Jesus knows that if this scribe lives up to his promise, I will follow you wherever you go, he's going to have to be pulled from his comfortable home, his comfortable way of living, to a different sort of lifestyle. And Jesus tells him that he's failed to do something before he makes the promise. He has failed to count the cost because the Son of Man, in this case, one who would not even himself have the luxury that the animals have. Jesus says foxes have holes to live in, birds have nests to live in. In other words, those animals have settled, safe, secure places that they can go and live and reside.

But the Son of Man does not have those luxuries. because as the son of man, as he traveled, living the life that he had been called to by the Lord, the Father, he did not have a settled, safe, secure place that he could just always lay his head. In fact, his journey was going to be unsettled, unsecure, unsafe, and would lead him to the cross. And Jesus says to the scribe, you have not yet count the cost. are you willing to leave your settled, safe, and secure existence and follow me?

That's the question. But don't start the journey if you're not willing to finish. Do not besmirch my name by turning back after you've begun the journey. So, folks, those of us who have said, maybe in the past or maybe say now, Yeah, I'll follow Jesus wherever he goes or wherever he calls me. Have we counted the cost first?

Now, let me say a point here. And my wife Louise likes to be sure I have some balance in my life. And it's usually a very healthy thing for me to get that balance. In the journey with Christ, there is great joy. in my journey I have found no greater satisfaction in life until I finally said and it was later in my life I finally said this I mean I'd said the words early in my life but you know how words are they're easy to say but it was later in my life when I finally said wherever I'll go and it was like a burden lifted from my back

and I have no greater joy in the journey

until that day. That was the turning point where the great joy came. So there is great joy in the journey, but folks, the reality is, if we really say, I will follow you wherever you go, in this life, on this earth, this side of eternity, the journey is often very, very difficult. It is not easy to leave our settled, safe, secure existences what Christ has called us to do. And we tend to want to soften.

Oh, Christ wouldn't want me to do that. Oh, Christ wouldn't want me to sell my home. Christ wouldn't want me to take my children into this circumstance. I think of a student, Reed Satterfield at Gordon Conwell, who took his children and his wife to Uganda to serve. And you should have heard all the folks who said he shouldn't go, right?

All the reasons he shouldn't go. He went anyway.

[Personal prayer concern omitted.]

But Jesus calls us to that kind of radical existence. But he wants us to count the cost before we go. The second vignette, I've told you the point of the story. The life of a true disciple is the disciple who truly follows Christ wherever Christ leads him, chooses a life that on earth in the short term may encounter great difficulty and sacrifice. So soberly reflect before you start the journey.

Now here's the second vignette.

the second vignette teaches us that we should not delay or seek to avoid God's call on our lives when He calls us.

The story here is that Christ called one of those who was with Him to follow. It was a clear command, and it was an immediate command. Follow me. It was not a command that allowed for other options. There was only one option in the command.

It was follow me, and the sense is follow me immediately, follow me now. The response was Lord first, and that word first is important in the text because what the response is is saying I want to give priority, preeminence, preeminence, something else, first attention, over and above this immediate command you have given me. So we're at a point of conflict, folks. We're at a point of conflict. We have a call of God, and then there's a conflicting opportunity.

And when the choice is between the immediate call of God and this conflicting opportunity, or this conflicting duty,

the responder says, let me first do the other thing. So we're talking here in a sense where there's conflict.

And he wants to do the other thing first. Well, the point is this. The point of the little story is that when Christ calls, immediate obedience is required.

we are to give His call on our lives first priority. And the problem with the man's response lies not so much in the activity that is discussed, but in his unwillingness to give the call of Christ first priority in his life. He essentially seeks to avoid the demands of the Christian life by allowing worldly entanglements to take priority and to distract him. And Christ says to him, let the dead bury their own dead. And in the text, I think the point is the first dead are the spiritually dead.

Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead who are physically dead. But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God. This is where we had a lot of the debate in the Rogers house last night. All right, dad, well, when you're dead, don't worry.

The point is not that we shouldn't bury our parents. The point is priority. When the call of Christ is on our lives, nothing comes before that.

And Christ is saying to the disciple, in effect, this. Many have not responded to my call on their lives. They are the spiritually dead. And those who are spiritually dead often only deal with things that are dead in their lives. They don't deal with things that are eternal last. And we have sort of a picture here of this spiritually dead person burying something that's dead. So the spiritually dead person who needs to be figuring out how they can become spiritually alive is spending all their time with stuff that's already dead anyway.

As so much of the things of this earth are. And Jesus is saying that we should not be like that spiritually dead person. There are many who are spiritually dead who will always stay entangled in the affairs heirs of the world that can never lead to real life. If that is what the spiritually dead choose to do, so be it, Jesus says, but you who are spiritually alive should go and encourage the spiritually dead to find new life in Christ. So you let the spiritually dead bury the dead, but you that are spiritually alive, you go proclaim the gospel so that those who are spiritually dead will come to life.

Do you hear what he's saying? There are other scripture references that help us understand this point. 2 Timothy 2.4 says, No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs. He wants to please his commanding officer. When Jesus Christ says, follow me, the affairs of the world have to take second place.

Because we're soldiers in his army. We are often like the soil where the seed fell among the thorns. Do you remember that story, the parable of the soils? The seed that fell among the thorns grew, but then what happened to the flowering plant? Jesus says the worries of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the concern for other things came in and choked the Word.

We often let God's call on our life get smothered by the stuff of this life. Don't we? That has been my battle most of my Christian life is to not let the stuff that is unimportant, that is uneternal, that will not lead to life, not smother me. And the culture pulls us in all sorts of ways to get entangled up in stuff, wrapped up in stuff, distracted by stuff that makes not one whit of difference from an eternal perspective. Don't do it.

Let the spiritually dead deal with the dead stuff. You who are spiritually alive deal with the stuff that matters, the stuff that is eternal.

let's go to the third vignette the third vignette is teaches us that we should be consistently devoted to our mission for christ and we should never never never look back the story and I love this passage I will follow you Lord but don't you love that immediately as soon as the words are out of this person's mouth saying he will follow he's putting conditions on it I will follow you Lord but you don't say I will follow you but you say I will follow you wherever you lead and we don't start out the journey by putting on our following, which is what this person wants to do.

I will follow you, but. Apparently this person had just sort of begun the journey. You can see Jesus going on down the road toward Jerusalem and this person comes running up and sort of starts walking down the road with Jesus and says, yeah, I'll follow you, but. And he says first, again, he wants to give priority to something besides the following of Christ. And so the problem here is not that there's anything wrong with going and saying goodbye to your family.

That's not the point. Even Elisha the prophet, when he was called by Elijah, went and told his family goodbye. The problem is not going to tell the family goodbye. The problem is conditional following. And you get the sense in this story that the person who says, I will follow but, has not yet made the commitment.

There's a vacillation there. He wants to go back and talk to the family first. And you get this sense. He's not fully committed. And when he goes back to see the family, he's going to kind of talk with them about whether it's okay for him to go on or not.

That was different from Elisha. Elisha says, I'll follow you, Elijah. I'm going to tell my family by, but there's no conditions. I'm going to follow you. This person wants to put conditions.

And they say, let me go back. Let me go back. vacillation, and exposing himself to the temptation of not following Christ. The point is, we should never say, I will follow, but. Having heard God's call, we should not impose conditions, we should not vacillate, we should remain consistently devoted to the mission that Christ has called us.

If we have put our hand to the plow, God help us, back. How many have started this journey of the Christian life saying I will follow you Lord and how many have fallen by the wayside? Wouldn't it be interesting if churches didn't just count how many can profess faith in Christ? You know we like to do that we like oh yeah we had this many professed. What if we kept track of how many professed but five years later were not still on the journey following Christ? I think we would be astonished we would be astonished.

I can think in our own church, I can think of people in my mind who made that commitment to Christ who were not walking with Christ anymore.

The problem, I think, often is we say the words, but in our hearts we have these conditions. I'll follow you only so long as I'll follow you, but we should never, never, never turn back. If you're on the journey, don't quit. The promise of eternal life is to those who endure to the end. So folks, let me make this clear.

Those who start the Christian life committed to Christ must end the Christian life committed to Christ if they wish to inherit eternal life. That's not that we're saved by our works. the endurance, the staying with it till the end is the proof that the original commitment was true. That it was valid. And those who say, yeah, I'll follow.

But after a year or two, just sort of go away. That original commitment was not the kind of commitment that it should have been if we want to inherit eternal life. Is this an easy teaching or what?

isn't it? That's why it's called the hard sayings of Jesus. It's such a big demand on us. Now let me go to our lessons for life. Understanding God's specific call on our lives is not always easy. This text of scripture doesn't spend time helping us understand in our own specific lives what God's specific call is for us. Does he want me to be a missionary? Does he want me to be a pastor?

plumber. He wants me to be a roofer. He wants me to be a teacher. But what this passage makes clear is once that call is heard, however it comes, once the call is heard, then we are to go. We are to go. When he calls, we are not to hold back. We're to be like Abraham. Hebrews 11, 8-10. A great three verses you ought to read this afternoon or this week.

Hebrews 11-10. When God called Abraham what does the text say? Abraham obeyed and went. And in the Greek text you can tell there's the calling and the obedience are simultaneous. In other words while God's call was still ringing in Abraham's ear in faith. So once the call is finally discerned, which I submit is not always easy to do, that can be a process to understand God's specific call. But once the call is heard, the obedient and immediate response is required. Faith and obedience are two sides of the same coin. And when we hear his call, we need to go. The third point is fight the distractions. Fight the distractions.

If Christ calls you and it means you have to give something up in order to fully follow Him, give it up.

Don't violate any of the commands He has given you. God has called us to care for our family, so don't shirk your family. But you know what I'm talking about. Those things that are the distractions that we accumulate around us, that sort of this accretion we get on our life that starts to weigh us down and distracts us from doing the things that God wants us to do. It can be your home.

You don't have to be in that home you're in. You can sell it and be in a smaller one or a different one or whatever. You don't have to have the car. You don't have to have a lot of things that begin to be the distractions. life. It can be obligations we put on ourselves with civic clubs, other obligations that are not central to our following of Christ. And I'm telling you, college students who are in here, the battle is as you get older and mature further, the battle is the distractions.

The battle is the distractions. They will weigh you down, encumber you, wrap you up, tie you up, and Satan hopes you let them. Don't do it. Be eccentric. Be different.

Walk to the beat of the heavenly drummer. Don't march to the beat of the world.

Next, let's simplify our lives in order to better serve Christ. And I think so often the distractions are because particularly we in the United States have such affluent lifestyles that we believe we are somehow entitled to this influence, deserve this affluence, and we should accumulate this affluence. But stuff entangles.

If we could go around the room and talk to the adults, how much time do we spend maintaining our stuff? I'm not talking just about the things we need. Everybody needs at least a basic shelter, basic food, basic clothing. I'm talking about all the extras.

spend paying for, working to pay for, repairing, dealing with the stuff. And there's a point at which if it is interfering with God's call on our life, we've got to do something about it, folks. Do not let me soften this teaching. The call of Christ on our life is to extreme devotion. And if the luxuries of life are getting in the way, the luxuries need to go.

We won't go out in the parking lot and start selling cars. And I joke. And I'm not saying that the Lord doesn't give us extras. I mean, the Lord has blessed many of you. And many of you are very generous with your money.

And many of you are generous in your commitment to the Lord. Just be sure the luxuries don't entangle and distract.

Fifthly, practice extreme devotion. And when I say practice, I mean really practice it. If I were extremely devoted to Jesus Christ, what would I do about this situation? Or what would I do in this situation? Or what would I do about this opportunity?

And I want you to understand all the biblical teachings related to that thing, but what would extreme devotion call you to do? Maybe start with some smaller things, but do it. And then do it again. And do it again until it becomes a habit of life. need to look different. Let's give ourselves to eternal causes. I know in my own life it helped me at one point to actually sit down and write down all the things I was giving my time to. And I began to find that there were many things I was doing that were very time-consuming that had nothing to do with eternity.

So I slowly but surely began to cut out those things that clearly were not related to eternal matters so that I could then have more time to give to eternal matters. That's not an easy thing to do, but I think that process needs to be in our minds as we seek to live out what Christ wants us to be. And lastly, I want you to sing more and more, and I won't sing it for you, but my daughter hanging around the table last night, and it was beautiful. You can have all this world, but give me Jesus. You can have all this world.

Give me Jesus. You can have all of it. Just give me Jesus.

That's the teaching of this text.

I think about Les and Helen Neely. We're the Neelys. Any Neelys in here?

Y'all know Les and Helen? Is he Jeff's brother, cousin, brother? Les and Helen, three children. Les came to talk to me before he went to Zambia. He said, we're thinking about going to Zambia.

Three missionaries. But you won't believe the pressure we're getting not to go.

Three young children.

I said, well, talk to Helen. I think the Lord usually calls husband and wife together. Be sure you're understanding God's call correctly. But if you hear his call, go. Go.

Do not wait. Do not hesitate. Be sure of the call, but then go. You will never, never, never regret it. That's what I say to you guys.

If you hear the call, go. Let's pray.

Lord, I pray that as we look at our lives, Lord, just forgive us. The truth of the matter is we are often so half-hearted and so lukewarm. Forgive us. You who have poured out so much abundance and riches and goodness and grace and mercy upon us deserve more than we have given you. I pray, Lord, for myself.

And I pray on behalf of this class, Lord. We will give you more. We will, in fact, give you all.

And if that prayer can't be prayed by hearts here today, Lord, I pray by your Spirit that you will awaken those hearts and minds to the reality of the glory, the grandeur, the greatness

of serving you and following you. For those who have done that, Lord, who have gone before us, we are grateful. For the Pauls and the Moseses and the Abrahams, for the Reed Satterfields and the Les Neelys, that I pray, Lord, that we will learn from the examples of those who have been faithful. And may we be found faithful. In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.