As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
– Luke 9:57–62
I have shared before about the first time I ever heard Jim Shaddix, my mentor in ministry and preaching. The first time I ever heard him preach this text. And he started the whole sermon by saying, “My aim tonight is to talk you out of following Jesus.” He was speaking to a group of students, teenagers. And I thought, “Well, this is an unconventional approach.” But it’s what is happening in this text.
Luke 9:57–62 is calling us to die to ourselves.
Doesn’t it seem like Jesus is trying to talk people out of following him? Dr. Shaddix went on to preach this text and then gave an invitation at the end. And all kinds of students responded. They said, “Yes, we want to pay the price of following Jesus.” And that really is the invitation.
It’s earlier here in Luke 9 as well. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, this instrument of death, of torture, and follow me.” And not just during one invitation, but to take up his cross daily. Jesus is calling you and me today, so let’s just all hear this in a fresh way. Jesus is calling you and me today to die to ourselves, to completely die to ourselves, to sin, and to live in him knowing to use these pictures from the end of Luke 9, knowing that will mean totally different priorities in this world for us today.
Luke 9:57–62 challenges us to make the Kingdom of God our highest priority.
Our priority today is to proclaim the Kingdom of God. More important than even going, Jesus says to this man in bearing his father. Dying to ourselves leads to totally new affections. That there is a love for Jesus that says, “I’ll go, I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” That even leads this last man to not even go and say goodbye to those at his home. “Put your hand in the plow. Don’t look back.” And then I think about this first guy who says, “I’ll follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus just looks at him, and says, “I’m on a road that leads to a cross and I don’t even have a home on the way there.”In other words, you follow me, you trust me for every single thing you need.
And so we pray, God, help us to die to ourselves today and to follow Jesus in each of these specific ways. We pray, oh God when we think about our priorities today, help us to go and proclaim your Kingdom, the gospel of your Kingdom. God, amidst all the different things on our agendas today, our to-do lists, our schedules, God, we pray for boldness to proclaim your Kingdom, to proclaim the gospel, and to live today to spread the gospel, right around us and all around the world.
Prayer for the Abkhaz People
We pray specifically for the Abkhaz people of Turkey, for this people group of 200,000 or so Muslims, no known followers of Jesus among them. God, we pray for the Abkhaz of Turkey to be reached with the good news of your Kingdom. We want to live today for the spread of your Kingdom.
Help us to die to ourselves and live for this. God, we want to live with, love for you, with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength, all our affections today. Lord, please help us to love you today in a way that makes even our closest relationships when we think about Luke 14 look like hate in comparison because we are so in love with you.
This verse invites us into the fullness of the Christian life.
God help us in all of this, just like this first man you spoke to, Lord Jesus, to trust you with every single detail in our life, every single thing that is happening in our lives right now. To trust you as Lord over every single thing in the world around you, and to trust that you are our Provider. You are our Sustainer. You are our strength. God, you are our hope. You are our life. You are our everything.
God, help us die to ourselves today and live in the fullness of Jesus and his Spirit in us. Jesus, have your way in our every thought, our every desire, our every word, our every action. Help us to live out Galatians 2:20 today. We’ve been crucified with Christ. We no longer live today. Not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life we live today, help us to live it in the flesh by faith and you, the Son of God, Lord Jesus, who loved us and gave yourself for us. We pray all this according to your Word in Luke 9:57–62, in the name of the one who is our life today. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
