Luke 9:23, 57-62

23 ”Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.

57 As they were walking along, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” 59 He said to another person, “Come, follow me.” The man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.” 60 But Jesus told him, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.” 61 Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family.” 62 But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”

As we come to Luke chapter 9 we see Jesus calling His disciples to a life of obedient commitment. This isn’t just a casual request this is a command of Jesus.  But today we seem to have settled for wearing a cross rather than bearing one. The question and concern for the church today is whether it is a sold out community of followers or just a social club full of fans? Jesus isn’t advocating a casual acquaintance but a life of continued commitment. This isn’t a once a week get together, this is about doing life together. A lot of Christians don’t mind a little Jesus once a week, but what about every morning when we wake? We don’t mind Him making minor changes in our lives, may be a little tinkering under the hood, but Jesus isn’t thinking tune up, He’s thinking overhaul. We don’t need a little touch up we need a total renovation, a radical remodel. Its not about a little makeup, we need a makeover. This isn’t about slapping a Christian fish sticker on your bumper it’s about being a sold out follower.  Jesus didn’t step out of eternity and into time here on earth so that we would be better behaved, but for us to be saved. He didn’t come to tweak our manners or smooth out some rough spots but to do a total transform. The truth is that Jesus didn’t come to change me but to kill me. Because it’s only when I die to self, and surrender to the Savior, that I find true satisfaction in this life. As long as I fight Christ for control I will never be content. So following Jesus requires a focused commitment to deny self, take up our cross of suffering and serve Him. This isn’t just some theoretical teaching it’s a practical pursuit of Jesus and many people often fail to connect verses 57-62 with verse 23. Where we see at the end of the chapter three examples of people who proclaim to be followers but end up satisfied to just be enthusiastic admirers. In their excuses we discover that what keeps them from following  is really what hinders and holds the majority of us back from following Him. In verse 57 as they are walking along we find our first fan, a man who claims commitment to Christ and says “I will follow you wherever you go.” Notice the word wherever, this appears to be commitment without reservation, yet Jesus responds: “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” Jesus knowing his heart confronts him with the choice between comfort and commitment. Jesus is drawing attention to the fact that this man loved comfort more than he did following Christ. I wonder is comfort what is holding you back? The call to take up our cross and follow Christ, is in direct conflict with our desire to be comfortable. We are by nature comfort seekers more than Christ seekers. A true follower is not concerned with the question “How can I be comfortable, but how can I be committed” The sad reality is that many of us are not following Christ, we are chasing comfort. As a result comfort has become our God, it’s what we live for, strive for, sacrifice for, and serve. It is here that Jesus makes it clear that there is nothing comfortable about the call to follow Him. Think about the relationship you have with Jesus and answer this question: Is it one of convenience, or commitment? This man started by speaking words of commitment, but when Jesus painted him a picture of what commitment to Christ looked like his desire to follow seems to fade. I think there are a lot of people who have made the decision to come to Christ for eternal life but have never really carried through on their commitment to live for Christ. When it comes to Jesus how in are you? Are you sold out for the Savior or is it more of a surface thing?  Are you a fair weather fan or faithful follower? There are many who say I really like the Savior I just don’t like serving, sure I love Christ just not His Church. This seems to be the tragic trend today, Christians that claim Christ without commitment. Sold out on the surface instead of deep down in the soil of their soul.  We are completely committed to follow Jesus as long as we don’t have to forgive the one who hurt us. The truth is we are more committed to the bondage of bitterness and resolute in our resentment than we are in our relationship with the Redeemer. We say that we are totally committed to Jesus yet don’t trust Him with our tithe. We are supposedly sold our yet refuse to surrender our sex life to His Will, continuing to do what we want. Instead of carrying the banner of Christ courageously we wear it carelessly like casual, loose fitting clothing. But following Jesus isn’t the latest fad. We don’t get to pick and choose which of His teachings to follow. The bible is not some buffet that you belly up to and take what look good while dismissing what doesn’t. Today many parents are in a panic because their grown kids seem careless to the cause of Christ. When kids walk away from Jesus parents often ask two things: What happen, and What do we do? As a pastor I have pondered and poured over this question for quite some time and the crushing conclusion I have come to is that we may be raising our kids in the Church, but are we raising them in Christ? If not then we might be the ones training them to be fans and not followers of Christ. So what do we do, stop trying to herd and harassing them into a life with Jesus and start modeling what it looks like to follow the Master in our own lives. The problem is that what many parents seem to want for their kids is a little bit of God with some biblical morals but not a bold belief to where their kids are sold out for the Savior.  But may be the most dangerous and disastrous way to raise our kids is with a dash of Jesus, just like an inoculation, where a little bit makes you immune to the real thing. So what are you committed to, Christ or comfort, and which are you teaching you children to follow?

Jonah 3:10-4:11

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” 5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” 10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

Lastly we see that while:

• Nineveh prayed for deliverance, Jonah hoped for destruction.

After preaching God’s message of repentance Jonah goes outside the city, builds a private retreat and becomes a spectator. This is not what He was called to do, rather it’s what he wanted to do. Because he had predetermined what God should do, he wasn’t really interested in forgiveness, so the message of mercy he had just preached was really nothing more than a formality. Jonah had put God in a box and any outcome that didn’t fit with his wishes would only make him mad. He put more time and effort into building a comfortable retreat than he did in being compassionate. He saw his life as one that was worthy of God’s love and care, that he somehow deserved God’s grace and compassion.  It’s easy to walk away from a wicked world that desperately needs God’s grace and live lives holed up in our hypocritical huts. Jonah was satisfied to sit in his self-righteous man made retreat waiting for the wicked to be wiped out. He desired destruction instead of deliverance and saw God as being too hasty in wrapping these people in a blanket of forgiveness. He didn’t believe that they deserved deliverance and here for once he was right, that’s the whole point of grace, none of us deserve Gods love. What is sad is that Jonah was mad because he ended up with a front row seat to forgiveness. How does God respond to this recklessness, He lets Jonah experience His grace, He provides an additional shelter to Jonah’s. God gives Jonah a vine with broad leaves that provides shade from the scorching sun, a welcome relief from his current circumstances. And as Jonah experiences its comfort for the first time in this narrative we find him happy. Jonah is perfectly happy to be the beneficiary of God’s care and compassion. He is absolutely delighted with God until the worm eats into his comfortable shelter. Now God causes a sirocco to scorch Jonah, leaving him dehydrated and depressed. Once again we see God’s creation obedient to the commands of the Creator, and once again Jonah responds to the Almighty with anger. Yet if anybody has a right to be angry it is God. It is God who hates sin, evil, and violence, more than we ever could, but He exercises patience, providing an opportunity for others to repent and seek Him. Jonah’s problem is that he does not see the world as God sees it, nor does he seeing himself as God sees him. Instead

• Jonah values a plant over people.

He is angry about the death of a plant, over which he never had any control, while people are on the edge of eternal destruction. Yet he only cared about the plant because of what it could do for him. Here is a man absorbed in a self-centered pettiness, watching a lost nation on a one way track to destruction while he whines about self. Jonah was wrapped up in Me mercy, as far as he was concerned, mercy was all right for him to receive, but not for others in the city. It is here that we see one of the greatest contrasts between God who was into reconciliation and Jonah who was into retaliation. But the story of Jonah doesn’t end with his pity party, no it ends with the presence of God. Jonah and his jealous heart are not to be our last thought, for the narrative leaves us in the presence of God. We are left face to face with God’s love and compassion, it’s as if the writer reveals God and then lays down his pen. The book ends with a question without a written answer, “And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh.” It’s a question we have to answer in our own lives, one that involves a humbling lesson about God’s compassion. For it is here that we come face to face with the truth that we don’t deserve God’s mercy. Why do we assume that God would love us more than our enemies? When we do it taints our thinking and we say, “Well, at least we are not as bad as them, God must be really pleased!” But as soon as we fall into the trap of this type of thinking, we misunderstand the heart of God. We don’t see others or ourselves in the way that God does. Not only did Jonah not know God well enough to grieve over sin as God grieves over sin, but he didn’t know God well enough to rejoice over the repentance of a sinner. God wants more than mere obedience; He wants us to value what He values, people. The story of Jonah reminds us that God isn’t satisfied with mere compliance; He wants us to understand His character. He wants us to reflect His mercy and love to all people. So let me ask you some personal questions. Are there people you resist loving and even refuse to care for because their values, beliefs, or lifestyle contradict yours? Who are your personal Ninevites: Maybe it’s the secular humanists, or homosexuals, or those who stand for pro-choice, or advocate a left-wing social agenda? If God called you to take His message of mercy to them how difficult would it be to obey? Jonah was so committed to his predictions of what these people deserved that he took pleasure in their punishment. But God’s concern is for people, and we have to ask ourselves if we share His concern? Do you have a passion for people? Are you willing to act on God’s passion even when you find His calling difficult and distasteful? Do you realize that the people that you struggle with are no more and no less deserving of God’s grace than you? There are many today who are lost and their rejection of the Creator breaks His heart, but does it break yours? Are you willing to reflect His passion for people or are you too stuck in your prejudice to share His passion? Jonah never really received God’s grace with gratitude, and when God sovereignly removed His blessings Jonah became angry. It’s easy to praise when His blessings are bountiful and everything is going good but how do you respond when His blessings seem to blow away? Do you get bitter when unexpected bills come due, or sickness strikes? Jonah’s problem is so often our problem, somewhere along the way, Jonah started to believe that he had somehow merited God’s favor. He believed he deserved God’s blessings, He had forgotten that God’s grace is undeserved. Just like the plant that shaded Jonah, the grace of God comes without any labor on our part. It comes apart from our laboring to earn it, produce it, or make it grow. It happens without our intervention or ingenuity, yet our tendency is to claim it as our “RIGHT” and we complain when it is no longer ours. When God causes the plant to spring up and give him shade Jonah was glad. He was happy with God’s gift at the same time that his heart was unhappy with God’s grace toward the Ninevites. Just like Jonah we too struggle to balance the blessings of God. He provides us with things and instead of being thankful we get so enamored by the things that we start caring more about the stuff than the eternal souls of people. We start caring more about the things than the One who provided them. The book of Jonah forces us to focus on things from God’s eternal perspective, a perspective we desperately need. Because if we are not careful we can end up caring more about our little shaded spot than we do about those stuck in sin. Jonah got upset because he had found his happiness in the created comforts instead of the Creator. The stuff may ease our situation but the truth is that it’s temporary. Satisfaction will never be found in the stuff and when we try to find our happiness and comfort in it God may take it away, to show us like He did Jonah, where our affections really lie.