Well, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Lord, we do want to walk in Your way, and Lord, we want to follow You. Lord, we just pray that, as we come together in Your name, there would be nothing said that is not of You; that You would guard Your word; that You would have everything said that You want said, Lord, and that nothing would be added to it. We ask this in Your name.
Well, good morning, brothers and sisters.
I want to come and share with you some verses of Scripture that have been on my heart for a while. These verses came to me not long after our brother Stephen shared about us losing our testimony, or the testimony leaving us.
I prayed a lot about that in the early times after that word was given. The Lord led me to a verse of Scripture, and I asked and considered what He had to say—what He was saying to me and what He was saying to us.
Let’s turn to Luke 9:51. Luke 9:51, New American Standard:
And it came about, when the days were approaching for His ascension, that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem.
Now, I sat and prayed about this and asked the Lord, “What are You trying to say?” At this time, we’re talking about the Lord’s testimony and following Him. The Lord revealed some things to me.
I’m not dressed as I normally would be if I were sharing the word. I thought it was kind of inappropriate to be talking about walking with the Lord dressed in a tie, a coat, a sport jacket, and nice shoes. So I’ve got my walking shoes on, because we’re going on a trip.
This is how I dress when I travel, by the way. I’m kind of casual. So, we’re going to take a little trip. I hope some of y’all have got your walking shoes on, because I want to walk with the Lord. I want to follow Him in this way.
This is the way of Christ that we’re going to be talking about. I want to look at three things:
Before we get into the way of Christ and these things along the way, I want you to turn to Luke 10. I thought it was very interesting.
Luke 10 gives us a glimpse, a kind of foreshadowing, of what the church is to be about. These verses are used a lot in evangelical circles when speaking about the church, the mission of the church, and how the church is supposed to be.
Luke 10:1-3 says:
Now after this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them two and two ahead of Him into every city and place where He Himself was going to come.
And He was saying to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
Go your ways; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.”
Then, in Luke 10:17-20:
And the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”
And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.
Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.
Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”
At that very time, He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit and said:
I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes.
Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in Thy sight.
All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows Who the Son is except the Father, and Who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
Turning to the disciples, He said privately:
Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see;
for I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them.
You know, I think we would all agree that that is the place we would like to be. We would like to be in the place where the Lord has entrusted us, handed authority over to us, rejoices greatly in us, and has revealed things unto us.
He wants us to be that body that is in this way. The Lord has revealed much to us, and we want to be in that place. But as we journey to that place—the fulfillment of that glimpse of what the church will be—there are some things we have to see along the way.
When the Lord declared that He set His face resolutely, or as a flint, toward Jerusalem, some things occurred. I looked at these things and considered our situation. The Lord revealed some things, sort of like taking a trip.
I had dinner with the Boggs, and Barb talked about how her family went cross-country. She would be in the back reading books, but her mother and father loved to look out, see the scenery, and see what was going on. That’s kind of what we’re doing now. We’re seeing the scenery as we walk by and seeing what the Lord has to reveal to us.
The first thing is found beginning in Luke 9:52. The Lord had resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem, and He sent messengers ahead of Him. They entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him, but they did not receive Him because He was journeying with His face set toward Jerusalem.
James and John saw this and said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But He turned and rebuked them:
You do not know what kind of spirit you are of;
for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.
As I considered this before the Lord, this is what I saw as I was passing by this landmark: as we go in the way of the Lord, in the way of Christ, there are going to be those that do not want to go. There are going to be those that just don’t like what they are seeing.
The Samaritans had a problem. Jesus did not fit their religious system. The Samaritans had a place of worship; they had their own little system. They saw the Lord with His face set toward Jerusalem, and they said, “I’m not accepting You. I don’t want You where we are. I don’t want You in my city.”
Brothers and sisters, as we travel with the Lord, as we walk the way with the Lord, there are going to be those who just cannot accept this way. They cannot let go of their religious system to embrace the Living One who is in their presence.
It’s going to happen. But there is another problem. There were two of them who were very zealous for the Lord, and they were saying, “Lord, shall we call down fire from heaven?” The Lord said, “No. You don’t understand. I have come to save, not to destroy.”
Even when we make the best preparations for the Lord, and in our zeal for the Lord, sometimes we can be wrong and astray. The admonition of the Lord is to walk by His Spirit, to be led by the Holy Spirit.
Now, I want to say this: John and James were not off the roster, were they? When they made this proclamation, the Lord did not say, “Y’all guys have messed up. Y’all are out. You’re no longer disciples. Get out of here. You can’t walk with Me anymore.”
No, He gently corrected them. It was a rebuke, but it was a rebuke in love because He was trying to show James and John His heart. His heart was that He came to save, not to destroy.
So, as we walk past situations where people will not follow and will not have a place for the Lord, we just need to keep going, brothers and sisters. We need to keep walking with the Lord.
The Lord did not stop in that village either. He did not say, “Okay, let’s set up a tent meeting and try to redeem everyone here.” He said, “No. Let’s just go on. Follow Me in the Spirit.”
I’m sure the Lord’s hope was that one day these brothers in Samaria, this city, would turn to Him. But He did not stop what He was doing, nor did He call down fire from heaven upon them. He just kept going.
The next situation is that, as He was walking along with the disciples, one came up to Him and said, “I will follow You wherever You go.” Jesus said:
The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.
As we pass by this individual, the Lord kind of said to me, “This world is not your home. If you’re going to walk with Me, you need to accept the fact that you are sojourners in this world. You’re pilgrims.”
“I don’t have a place to lay My head in this world. There’s not really a place of rest in this world.” Now, let me qualify this: there is a place of rest for the Lord, but it is not in this world. It is in His people.
But in this world, there is not a place of rest. If you are going to follow Him, you are going to have to accept the fact that this world is not your home, and you need to journey with Him.
Our brother Jerry has covered that subject matter very well, so I am not going to dwell here long. I think he has covered being a pilgrim very well through the life of Abraham. I think we need to pay heed to that.
The things of this world—the places of this world and the comforts it can give—are not where we should be. We should continue to walk with the Lord. Hold loosely to these things. Don’t hold on to them.
Your home, your car, your job—these sorts of things—the Lord does not say, “Give them up. Throw them away.” But hold loosely to them, because there is coming a time when He is going to call us to walk, and these things will either be weights that drag us down or things we let go of.
I pray that this individual did gather in and leave those things behind. I hope he really did when he heard that. I hope he did not stop dead in his tracks and say, “Oh, there’s no place for me to rest. I’m going back home.” I hope he really did walk on with the Lord.
The next landmark we pass by is a little different. The Lord walked by someone, looked at this individual, and said, “Follow Me.”
In Luke 9:59, this individual said:
Permit me first to go and bury my father.
But He said to him:
Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.
Did the Lord call this man away from his father’s funeral? I have read some commentaries on this, and I do not think so. I think what the Lord was saying was that this man was saying, “I have to take care of my inheritance, Lord. My father is my inheritance. I need to make sure I take care of all the provisions, lay everything out, and get everything in order in my life. Then I’ll come follow You.”
But I will tell you this: no matter what the situation was, the Lord knew what it was. There was a call for this individual to follow the Lord, and there was a mission given to him: to go and proclaim the kingdom of God.
The Lord said, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” and we say, “Oh, that’s harsh.” But what the Lord was trying to say, and what He said to me as I looked at this situation, was that there are lots of dead works in this world. There are lots of dead situations.
There are a lot of things the world tells us we have to be engaged in—that this is the proper way, that this is the way to do things—but they are dead. Let those who are concerned about those dead works take care of them. You have a call.
If we have a call on our lives, brothers and sisters—and we all do—it is not just the brothers who stand up here and give words of encouragement, admonition, or teaching who have a call on their lives. The Lord called each one of us for a purpose.
He did not just call me because I have a loud mouth and like to talk a lot. My grandmother used to say, “If you can find something to do, boy, that you can talk, you will be fine.” That is not the reason I’m up here, but it is just the word she had to say.
We each have a call on our life. The Lord has called us to do something. Are we going to continue engaging in dead things, or are we going to come to the Living One?
Here was the Living One talking to this individual, and He said, “Forget about this situation. Don’t engage in this dead work, but you go proclaim.” Lord, I hope this individual dropped what he was doing and walked on. I hope we can drop what we are doing and walk on.
So, we should not compromise with the world and those things.
The last thing along the way that we are going to look at before getting into the nature of this way is this:
Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.”
But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Here is another harsh word that the Lord had to say. I’m going to tell you a little story.
When I was younger, around fifteen years old, my dad had a farm. He sold the farm to a friend. I never got to drive the tractor much when Dad had the farm, but when this friend got the farm, he hired me to drive the tractor.
It was a 1952 John Deere B model—hand clutch, monster of a tractor, hard to deal with. I got up on the tractor, and he said, “I want you to plant this field for me.” I knew the field very well. I had walked it most of my life.
I got up on the tractor and started plowing. I got real concerned about the planter in the back and kept looking back. As I started doing this, I started looking, and the rows started doing like this. I thought, “Hmm, that’s not good.”
I noticed when I kept my eyes straight forward and started concentrating, looking down the row as my dad always taught me to drive—he said, “Don’t look off the end of the car; look down the road”—those rows tended to stay straight.
That is what the Lord is trying to tell this individual, and what He is trying to tell us. There are some things in our past that, if we keep looking behind us and looking toward them, are going to get us off track. Our rows are going to be very crooked, and we will not be able to keep that straight line.
The Lord talked to this individual, and he wanted to go say goodbye to those at his house. The Lord said, “Not time for that. It is time to leave the things in the past. You have seen Me. You want to follow Me. Pick up and go. Don’t look behind you.”
Don’t look at these things anymore. They are going to get you off course. Go on.
Brothers and sisters, it is time that we start walking this way.
Now, what is this way? We kind of need to know. When I get on the road traveling, I like to know what road I am going on.
I can get on the road and drive right down I-85. I know how to get close to home, and I know the routes now so I can get back to Alabama if I want to. Home is here, by the way, now. But I can get back to Alabama by driving down I-85. So, if I pick up I-85, I know where to go.
There was a section at one point where they were doing road construction, and I got all discombobulated and turned off. My wife said, “We’re not where we need to be.” I said, “I quite realize that. Let’s pray that we can get back on the road.”
So, we need to know the path we are walking in. What is this way of Christ that He set His face toward? Where was He going?
Now, remember, when I talk, y’all have to answer back. These are not rhetorical questions. Where was He going?
He was going to Calvary. He was going to Jerusalem, and He had set His face resolutely to go there for a purpose: He was going to Calvary. He was going to the cross.
Everyone take a breath. Another message on the cross. Boy, those crosses are heavy. “Oh, I don’t want to.” Well, hang on. We’re going to get through this.
The way of Christ is the way of the cross. That is where He was walking. That is where He set His face resolutely to go.
In Matthew’s Gospel, in the garden of Gethsemane, the Lord prayed:
Not My will, but Thine be done.
In Luke, He had set His face resolutely; and in Matthew, this was the confirmation of it. He had put His whole heart into doing the Father’s will, and that meant going to the cross.
Let me phrase it another way. Matthew 7:13-14:
Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it.
For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads