Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Well, now’s the time of season where statistically about half of the people that have made New Year’s resolutions give them up.

By far, the most popular resolution of an American is weight loss.

I’m at a loss, I keep trying to lose weight, but it keeps finding me.

I never thought I'd be the type of person who would get up early in the morning to exercise.

It turns out I was right.

I exercised once, but found I was allergic to it.

My skin flushed and my heart raced.

I got sweaty and short of breath.

It’s really very dangerous.

When it comes to dieting, they say you must “kick the habit” It took a lot of willpower.

But I finally gave up dieting.

Perhaps the reason that many New Year’s resolutions fail so easy is that most people go at these resolution with sheer willpower alone—forgetting the source of real power.

These people who fail their resolutions do so usually because they work at it alone.

Even secular psychology easily recognizes the power of corporate accountability and the increased success rate when groups of people work at resolving problems collectively.

Now if that can be true apart from Christ, imagine the success rate of Christians working together with the power of the Holy Spirit and of the Gospel!

The topic that I want to cover is the work of the ministry for this new year.

Now many of you will never be called to be pastors, or deacons, elders and you don’t need these positions to be used mightily by YHWH.

But the work of a pastor is to minister to a local body of believers and, in turn, the body then become the hands and feet together for Christ in this world.

A faithful pastor is to push the congregants toward Christlikeness, to instruct your life, to give you counsel, and most predominantly, to guide you in the word of God through preaching and that's how much of the teaching gets done is through the preached word and interpreting the wording--going through it methodically—which equips today’s saints and also hopefully strengthens your own personal studies, effectually making you an even sharper tool for our Lord as are continually coming together to worship each week.

You might recall what we talked about last week.

I challenged you to take a look back in order to evaluate and learn.

Not so for this week!

Listen to how Jesus responds to those who will follow after our Lord:

Scripture Reading:

​Luke 9:57–67

This passage is not exactly filled with the words that you would expect to hear from a loving, self-sacrificing Son of God.

Yet here it is, unadulterated for us to dwell upon this morning.

What we see here is a cost and need for faithful devotion for the call to and work of the ministry.

In context, the very next thing (starting in chapter 10) is there are 70 appointed and chosen to be sent out on a mission--they are missionaries--they are the representative of the Christ.

These 70 are going to speak His words in an official way and prepare the way for the Messiah’s Kingdom.

By the way, before we go further, which one(s) of us here today are called to do the work of a missionary?

Who here is called to bring the Gospel to the lost?

But in this passage, this is more than just an account of what happened.

This passage is more than a retelling of events—there's more here than a history lesson.

I believe that this passage is a warning as to the cost of working in the ministry.

Transition:

To be used by the Creator of the entire universe, to be effective and to have a lasting impact for the All-Powerful YHWH, we must look forward at the goal and devote ourselves to doing everything we can to be relentless with the power of the Gospel to further His Kingdom here on Earth.

But Jesus communicates truths here using three men as a caution as to weed out those who are partially committed.

Jesus first would have those of us desiring to serve Him:

I. Count the Cost (vv.

57-58)

It is all too easy for us to get caught up in the moment and jump into something that seems fun and exciting.

We sometimes volunteer for things that we don’t really plan ahead on and consider what effect it might have on our lives.

We just “jump into it” head-on.

Jesus brings this lack of vision to the forefront of our perspective:

At first this sounds fairly promising!

Somebody approaches Jesus here and wanted to follow after this Son of Man.

Imagine for a moment that some random person is watching you in Wal-Mart while you shop.

Perhaps while you shop you find some others from Grace Baptist Church and you start chatting with them and you notice that this stranger has his eyes still glued to you.

Then you continue shopping and you get an opportunity to witness to someone else but they reject, not only the Gospel, but they reject you because you are a Christian.

However, that same gazing stranger is following you, not with contempt in his eyes, but with curiosity.

Finally, this stranger stops you and says to you, “I’ve been watching you and I want to have what you have, I want to be with you wherever you are going so I could be like you.”

If you are not too creeped out, you might be thinking, “Of course!

follow me to church and taste and see that the Lord is good!”

In like manner, you would expect our Lord’s response to at least be either a “sure, come along” or, if not, then perhaps a “no, this caravan is full.”

But He says neither, instead:

​Luke 9:58

What a peculiar response from Jesus!

This stranger didn’t ask to sleep in His bed.

What Jesus did here was shoot straight at the heart issue—a willingness without the faithfulness.

It is hard to gauge the genuineness of this traveling companion.

This sounds like the exact thing that the Apostle Peter would have said to Jesus!

This person here probably can relate to Peter when Peter told our Lord that he would never leave Jesus just before denying him 3 times.

However, we also know that Peter’s heart was as genuine as any mature believer would have been.

But we don’t know if this person here, after counting the cost, continues to follow after Jesus or abandon the faith considering that the cost is just not worth it.

Perhaps he was a little too comfortable with his current life situation.

Jesus was not desperate to muster up disciples—He didn’t take everyone who wanted to follow.

This is the same today!

I want more people to come to Grace.

I need more people helping out at Grace.

And while I believe Jesus wants more people to choose this church as their church, He doesn’t need them.

The reality is Jesus doesn’t need me or even you!

He wants us, but He doesn’t need us.

He didn’t come to sell Himself.

Rather, He came to show His great love for us and invite us to share in that great love; and in this context, responding to His love is proven in action by being a disciple.

Those who truly want to be His disciples need to understand that it will cost them something.

It takes sacrifice: sometime it is money, sometimes it is your time, sometimes it is your rights, sometimes it is your comforts, and sometimes it is all of the above.

Are you looking forward into 2019 to see what costs it will take to continue to follow Jesus?

To be Jesus’ disciple, a person must willingly put aside worldly comfort and security.

These words are recorded for our benefit today.

Have you counted the cost of following Jesus?

What are you willing to pay to follow Jesus this year?

Do you understand that following Jesus is far more valuable than anything this world offers?

Transition:

We have to consider the cost of sacrifice in order to effectively serve our Savior.

We would be better remembering that this cost can never measure up to the cost of your salvation!

So do not keep our Savior waiting:

II.

Do Not Delay (vv.

59-60)

The call to ministry is not convenient!

Salvation is now!

And so serving Him is now, today—not later!

not on our timeline but in our Master’s time!

The first person in verse 57 came on his own to petition his loyalty to Jesus; this time, however, Jesus commands this other man to be his disciple.

But this man shows hesitation, he says that he first needed to return home to take care of some small business.

No! it wasn’t something small he had to do, he needed to bury his dead father.

The man was seeking approval to wait until his father was buried.

Well, of course an all-benevolent Lord such as the Christ would surely understand that this man was only honoring his dead father by burying him.

So we can expect Jesus to concede such a heavy request, right?

How can the Messiah, God in flesh, say that? is that loving and understanding?