Good morning. I'm very grateful to our Lord to be with you on this Lord's Day. Please turn with me now to the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter 9. We're going to begin looking at God's Word with verse 57. However, I would like to begin reading with verse 51. Puts it in context. Verse 51 begins an entirely new section of the Gospel of Luke, and it is very difficult to understand these very difficult words that Jesus is saying in this passage without putting them in that context. So let us hear God's holy word. When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village. 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 the 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. So ends the reading of God's holy word. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank and praise you for your word. We rejoice in it because we know, Father, that it is life, it is light, it is salvation, it is the word that you use to raise the dead to new life. It is the word that you use by the power of your Spirit working through it to sanctify us through and through. Therefore, Father, we pray that by your grace you would raise the dead. with your word. And we pray that by your grace, you would sanctify us through and through, that you would build us up in our faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ and make us more like Jesus, our God and Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen. No matter how old you are, you have seen changes. If you're old enough to understand my words, I guarantee that you have seen changes. The most obvious are styles of clothing, types of music, and the design of things like cars, appliances, or electrical equipment. These have changed. But while we can call many of these changes somewhat superficial, because a car is still a car, isn't it? Even if the motor is different, even if the design and the structure is different, its purpose has remained the same. And they've always had rubber tires. There haven't been wood tires on any cars. So while we can call some of the changes superficial, those changes have gone hand in hand with the kind of changes, with changes in the way that people live, and the way that they think, and the way that they look at the world. Changes which we could call fundamental, as opposed to the superficial. Work ethic. Work space. and privacy, just to name a few, have changed substantially and they affect the way we think. While the superficial changes may not make long-term differences, we know that some of the fundamental changes will probably have long-term consequences that aren't good. For example, what we might think of as a fundamental change, like the definition of marriage, or the definition of life, or the definition of gender, are treated by some as superficial, as being changes that are no different than a change of clothing, or a style of furniture. But we know that they're far more serious than that. And it isn't as if the church has been immune to such changes. Think about changes over the decades. Think about the clothing that's worn to worship in some places. Think about the differences in Bible translations. Think about the tunes and the word choices of some hymns and musical instruments used to accompany worship. Even the style of the bulletin, these are changes. And while some are very superficial and even an improvement over the past, there may be other changes from time to time that make us wonder, is it true? Is it true that something that I used to think of as very, very important wasn't really so very important after all. It is without question that the changes that were instituted by Jesus and after his ascension into heaven, the disciples were viewed in the very same way in his and the disciples' day. Think about it, baptizing Jews. Do you know that before John the Baptist, Jews were not baptized? Gentile converts were sometimes baptized. But a Jew wasn't baptized. So when John the Baptist comes along baptizing, and according to the end of Luke 3 and the beginning of Luke 4, Jesus' disciples were baptizing, that was very different. That was unusual. There was nothing like it that had happened in the past as far as they were concerned. It looked like a very substantial change. healing on the Sabbath, picking years of grain on the Sabbath to eat, evangelizing Samaritans, making disciples from prostitutes, from tax collectors, and from uneducated fishermen. These were shocking changes. Later, after the Ascension, welcoming Gentiles into the church without physical circumcision, disregarding dietary laws, worship on the first day of the week. These were huge changes. There was nothing superficial about them. They were substantial. There was nothing superficial about them. They were fundamental. Therefore, without an understanding that these changes actually were recapturing the original intent of the law and the spirit of the faith and the obedience that God wanted in his people, those who were without true faith, those who were without true understanding thought that Jesus was changing the substance of God's word. They did not understand that God in the person of Jesus was calling them to repent of their own unbelief and their own disobedience and return to God's word and serve and obey him only. Jesus wasn't changing God's word. Jesus was changing his people to make them the sort of people who worship the Father in spirit and in truth, the sort of people who would obey all of Jesus' commands. Because Jesus' commands are God's commands. Do you think that God was really interested in physical transformation when He instituted circumcision with Abraham? Do you think that that's what He was really going for? An outward, physical sign? The Law and the Prophets tell us no. What God was looking for was circumcision of the heart! That's what mattered. That was the substance of the law. A stripping away of the world from our hearts. In Luke chapter 9, verses 57 through 62, we see what sort of substantial change is demanded of Christ's disciples. He doesn't merely demand an outward change of behavior, an outward look, an outward appearance. He is changing the way we think. Most of all, He is changing hearts, our hearts, so that we will neither believe, love, or serve any other God but Him only. In these verses, I would like us to see no permanent home in this world, no time to waste, and no looking back. Beginning with verse 51, Luke has begun a new section in this gospel. Having completed the record of Jesus' Galilean ministry, Luke begins to describe the journey of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. It is a journey that is going to be recorded over the next 10 chapters of the Gospel of Luke. It is a journey that begins with the same sort of rejection that Jesus experienced near the beginning of the Galilean ministry. There he was rejected by the people of Nazareth, here by a village of Samaritans. It is a journey to Jerusalem where Jesus will receive the ultimate rejection. The record of Jesus meeting these would-be followers is found here and in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew, which is topically arranged, not chronologically or geographically, Matthew, which is topically arranged, tells us of Jesus meeting two of these three men just shortly after the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew only tells us, as I said, only about the first and second man, not the third man. After telling us of Jesus being rejected by the Samaritans because he is on the way to Jerusalem, Luke tells us of Jesus speaking with these three men along the way. We don't know if it immediately happened after he passed from Samaria into Judea, or whether it happened sometime later. That's not what's important. What's important is the context of it being on his way to Jerusalem. and the context of the just previous verses. The first and third are said to have approached Jesus, while the second is said to have been called by Jesus to follow him. Although each is rebuked for their hesitancy in some way, we are not told whether any of them started to follow Jesus or not. That's not what's really important. What is important for us to understand is that the Holy Spirit wants us to look at these events in the context of Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit wants us to see the seriousness of Jesus' call to follow him, considering the seriousness of where that call ultimately leads. These would-be disciples are spoken to by Jesus as he moves from rejection to rejection, from suffering to crucifixion. Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem, but not for the same reason that those who are with him want to go to Jerusalem. They are anticipating the glorious reign of the Messiah. They are anticipating a situation in which one of them can be established to be Jesus' greatest disciple. They are anticipating positions in Christ's service in which they can wield power and authority, the power and authority of Jesus. They expect to wield not just power and authority to preach the gospel, not just power and authority to heal the sick, not just power and authority to cast out demons. They want the power and authority to be able to call down fire from heaven. to consume all those who will not bend the knee to the Messiah. They are looking for the glory, power, and judgment of God. For them, then, Jerusalem is the goal. For them, Jerusalem is the goal, the seat of God's power and glory on earth. They look to Jerusalem as the place where the rejection of Jesus will come to an end. The place where the Roman Empire will be overthrown and all will bend the knee to the Messiah. Jesus, on the other hand, has set his face to Jerusalem to complete the work he has been sent to do by the Father. For Jesus, the earthly Jerusalem is not the final goal. It is not the goal. Like Nazareth, like the village of the Samaritans, Jerusalem is just another city of humiliation. Another city of rejection on the way to the real goal. Jerusalem is where Jesus' work on earth will be brought to its completion with his rejection, his suffering, his death, his resurrection, and most importantly, his ascension. The real goal lays beyond Jerusalem. And you know how we know that? Because of verse 51. Verse 51, the word that is translated taken up, points us to the fact that the glory that Jesus is moving toward is not the glory of this earth or a reign that is established on this present earth. Again, verse 51 says, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. The word translated taken up The root of that word means the ascension. It's pointing us to the ascension into heaven. The goal, therefore, is not a place so much as it is an event. The completion of Jesus' work on earth and his entrance into heaven. That's the goal. Therefore, Jesus is not leading his disciples to Jerusalem so much as he is leading them to heaven. The disciples think that the goal of the Messiah is something that is of this earth, but the true goal of the Messiah is heaven. Following Jesus is therefore something that is not earthly oriented, but heavenly oriented. Because it is heavenly oriented, we see in these verses that it is something that has no regard for the relationships that are limited to this earth. Especially those that we have outside of Christ. But only those relationships that are related to his work for us. If you want to tie it into another verse, Ephesians 2.10. In this passage, we see that following Jesus means being like him. Following Jesus and his suffering means, in part, surrendering the comforts, the relationships, and the commitments that are natural to this present life in order to reach his goal for us. no permanent home in this world. Verses 57 and 58, 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 the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. It is while they are on the road to Jerusalem, as Jesus heads toward the goal where he will be taken up, that someone along the way speaks to Jesus and says that he will follow Jesus wherever he goes. Unlike the next two men who address Jesus as Lord, which for Luke's vocabulary, in the Gospel of Luke, you can tell whether somebody's a disciple or not by the way that they address Jesus. If they call him Lord in the Gospel of Luke, that means they're a disciple. If they call him rabbi or something else, it means that they're not a disciple. So we don't know where this man's at, spiritually speaking. We don't know whether he believed that Jesus is the Christ of God or something less. What we do know from these words is that the intention of this man indicates that his commitment is to follow Jesus wherever Jesus' mission might take him. That's what he says. His bold declaration is an echo of the call by Jesus to the disciples during the Galilean mission when he said, follow me. The first disciples were called from the seashore. Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Jesus called Levi to follow him from his tax office. Now this man offers to follow Jesus wherever he goes, but despite his declaration, we are to wonder whether he is really willing to follow Jesus wherever he goes, since Jesus' path is going to lead to rejection, suffering, and crucifixion. Unlike the disciples first called by Jesus who had no idea where following Jesus might lead them at the start, and even by this time really don't understand where following Jesus is going to lead them, this man's offer comes while Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. In other words, even the Samaritans could see that Jesus' face was set to Jerusalem. So surely this man understood that's where Jesus was geographically going as well. And while those first disciples still lacked understanding, as I've said, about the path of suffering, here Jesus' proximity to the end of his earthly ministry gave a greater urgency for would-be disciples to understand that the cost of glory is not ease and comfort in this world, but suffering and loss to the things of this world. Jesus isn't going to Jerusalem to find a bed there. He's not going to Jerusalem to find a palace there. He is not going to Jerusalem to find a throne. Following Jesus, truly following him, means realizing that Jesus has no place of rest in this world. Even the foxes and birds have places of rest, Jesus says, but not the Son of Man. That is, even the animals and birds over which mankind extends no care have holes and nests for their homes. But Jesus does not. His goal is not a palace in Jerusalem or anywhere else in this present creation. This isn't to say that Jesus slept out in the open or was offered no hospitality. What it does mean is that none of those temporary places was his home. It means that while Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, that even Jerusalem will not be a home for him. The place of rest for the Son of Man is not a place on this earth. With these words, Jesus once more points his disciples to the goal which is not of this creation. With these words, Jesus once more reminds his disciples that following him means giving up the comforts and permanence of this world. With these words, Jesus once more reminds his disciples that following him means suffering, just as he has suffered, and that suffering means not seeking a place of rest in this world. Following Jesus may indeed include homelessness for some disciples, and it has. But what every true follower of Jesus must realize is that whether they have a temporary place to stay or a paid-off home, there is no real place for us to lay our heads in this world. We are not of this world. and our place of rest is not in this world. It may be, it may not be too. I think about it, you know, military guys sleep in a lot of beds. Military women as well. So I can't compare myself to everybody in this room, but it's probable that if we're talking about people in this room who have slept in more beds than anybody else, I may be up there at the top. I may be at the very top. In fact, you could probably put 10 of you or 12 of you together and I've slept in more beds than the dozen of you put together. I've been doing this for almost 23 years. That's a lot of different beds in a lot of different places. I've slept on floors. I've slept on mats. You know there's a name of a mat in Japan that means that the floor is better than the mat. Because that mat is so hard, it's meant to toughen you up, I guess. But I've slept on floors, I've slept on mats, I've slept on beds set on earthen floors, so you have that good rich aroma of soil all night. I have slept on soft beds, I've slept on hard beds, I have shared my bed with fleas. I've shared my bed with so many things that have bitten me. You just pop three Benadryl and say, Lord, let them suck as much blood as possible, but please put me to sleep before that happens. I have slept with mosquitoes. I have slept with huge roaches in my bed, falling asleep while they're crawling up my arm. I've done that. I say, Lord, don't let me fall asleep with my mouth open. And I've gone out just like that. I've slept with mice in my bed, and that's sort of creepy. I have come to view my bed at my house to be just one more bed that is not my bed in a place that is not my home, even though I like that bed the best because that's where my wife is. If you are following Jesus, then you are on the road of the alien and the sojourner. If you are following Jesus, then you are not heading toward a place to call home in this world. He was headed toward the place where God's purpose for him would be fulfilled. He was headed to the place where he would be taken up into heaven. That was his home. Return me to the glory of the Father that I had with you before he came in flesh. That's what he wanted. That was home. That's our home. That's the place He has gone ahead of us to prepare a place for us. If you are following Him then, it must be the same for you as it was for Him. There is no path to His glory other than the path that is by way of the cross and dying to this world. No time to waste. Verses 59 and 60. 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. In the case of the second man, it is Jesus who calls him to follow. This man is called by Jesus just as other disciples before him in Galilee had been called. But unlike the disciples who left their nets and their father's boats and Levi who left his booth, this man asked the Lord to let him first go and return and bury his father. Now, it's only remotely possible that the man's father was already dead and needed to be buried. It's possible, but that's remote. And I'll tell you why. In Judaic practice of Jesus' day, someone who died was buried as quickly as possible. Burial took precedent over every other priority, including circumcision. And circumcision was about the highest priority in Judaic practice. But burial of the dead took precedence over circumcision. That's how important it was. Do you understand the implications of what Jesus is saying? The thing that you hold to be the very most important thing of all things, following me, is more important than that. If this man's father were really dead, it's highly unlikely that he would have been anywhere near the road. He would have been over at the burial site. But somehow Jesus sees this man and calls him and says, follow me. And if this man's finishing the completion of the task of burial, Jesus is saying, following me is more important than finishing that. Leave it to everybody else who's there. Leave the dead to bury their own dead. More likely, however, and equally possible linguistically, is that the man's father is in the last stages of life. And if this is the case, Jesus is saying, I mean, the man is simply saying, let me wait until my dying father has died, and then I'll follow you, Jesus. After all, wouldn't it be his duty to honor his father by waiting until then? Jesus' answer is that Jesus' call to follow takes precedence over everything else. Whether he is staying by his father until he dies or completing the trip to the cemetery, when Jesus calls to follow, the true disciple follows. Jesus was the firstborn son, and he left his earthly family behind to follow the calling of the Heavenly Father. Jesus tells the man to permit the dead to bury their own dead. That is, let those who are dying or are dead take care of each other. As for this man, whom Jesus has called to follow him, he is to go and proclaim the kingdom of God. It isn't the physically dead whom he is to worry about. Rather, his concern is to be for those who are spiritually dead whom God the Father would raise to spiritual new life through the proclamation of the kingdom. That is to be the focus of his concern. The call to follow Jesus takes precedence over every other relationship, no matter how short the remainder of that relationship might be. To be sure, we mustn't think that Jesus' call means the dissolving of our duties to parents, spouse, or children. It was Jesus who condemned the Pharisees for forsaking their duty to father and mother. However, what Jesus does demand is that those relationships do not hold back those whom he calls to follow. Later, when the apostles of Jesus would carry the gospel to other places, we know from Paul's letter to the Galatians that their marriages didn't hold them back. They took their wives along. For now, whatever duty this man thinks he owes his father, Jesus tells him that it isn't to hold him back from now leaving his father and proclaiming the gospel. Do you get it? This is not superficial change. It chafes at every single person in this room who's been paying attention. We want to put up walls. We want to take out the bricks and start laying them out. It's actually offensive because of the hardness of our hearts and our unbelief and our lack of faith in Jesus. Family was a priority for the people in Jesus' day and it is a priority for people in our day. It's a priority for you. And Jesus is saying that nothing, nothing takes precedence over him. This is a call to a fundamental change in the way we think and the way we love Jesus. Jesus' demand here, you understand, is a first commandment demand. You shall have no other gods beside me or in addition to me. God demands that he alone is God of our lives. Did you ever think about it? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength. If you are loving God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength, how do you love anybody else? Where is the love left over? Do you think that when he goes on to give the second commandment, and love your neighbor as yourself, that he's saying, okay, except for, love me with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength, except for, I want you to also love your neighbor. You think that's what's going on there? Jesus, I'm telling you, Jesus' demand is that He only, no one else, not your wife, not mommy, not daddy, not anybody else, not your children, no one else is a God to you except Him. It's not Jesus and them, but Jesus alone. You've heard people say God first, others second, and me third. False. Jesus first, Jesus second, Jesus third. Jesus only. We love and serve others through our love and service to Jesus Christ. And when you think about it, that's the only thing that keeps our love and service to others pure. Because we're loving our neighbor through our love for Christ. We're loving our spouse through our love for Christ. We're loving our boyfriend or our girlfriend through our love for Jesus Christ. This is a radical, substantial change to the way we've been thinking. Your father may want you to take over the family business. Your mother or the mother of your wife may not want you to move away and take her grandchildren away. However, if Jesus is calling you to follow Him, His call takes precedence over everything. Do you know every time I have a candidate, and let's say they've gone through the whole process. They've visited the field. They say, we want to go. We want to be appointed. We're going to accept that call. Do you know that within a couple of weeks, I get either an email or a telephone call with a long list of questions that were never asked before in any of the process? And my response is always the same. OK, was it your mother or her mother? that asks these questions. And it's always one of the two mothers. Always. Of course, for many of us, following Jesus means that we carry out familial duties which the world has so easily abandoned. But we must carefully weigh whether we are using something that someone else expects of us as an excuse not to follow if and when he calls us to go elsewhere. No looking back. Verses 61 and 62. 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. This third man is mentioned only in Luke, as I said before. He's not mentioned in Matthew. And what makes him so very interesting is that this exact thing has happened before in the Bible. It happened in the Old Testament. This man tells Jesus that he will follow him, but he simply wants to be able to run back and say goodbye to his parents. That's all he wants to do. He wants to say goodbye to them. before taking up the journey of a disciple. And Jesus says simply that no one who begins to follow him and then looks back is fit for or suitable for the kingdom of God. Of course, there's been a long history of looking back in the Bible. Lot's wife looked back as she was being led to safety and she was turned to a pillar of salt. When the Israelites in the wilderness who were called by God to follow him looked back to Egypt repeatedly, longing for fish or longing for vegetables or longing for safety, they made themselves useless to the service of God and were sometimes struck down by plagues but ultimately forbidden to enter the promised land. That is why Paul declares in Philippians 3 verse 13, but one thing I do, Forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus. As I said, what is so interesting about this example, this man, is that this has happened before. We read about it in 1 Kings 19.20 and following. The ministry of the prophet Elijah was nearing an end, and his life was once more being threatened by Jezebel, wife of Ahab. He had gone into hiding. The Lord appeared to him. and told him that he had three things to do before he was done. He had to do three things. He had to anoint a new king over the kingdom of Aram. He had to anoint a new king over the kingdom of Israel. And he had to anoint a replacement prophet for himself, Elisha, to take his place. Now, he had been alone for so long, he had been hounded for so long, he had been running for so long and in hiding for so long, that you can sort of guess which one he picked first. The one that would mean that there was somebody with him during the last two tasks. So he picked number three, that's the one he was going to do first, he was going to go find Elisha. and he found him, Elisha was in the middle of a field, he was plowing the field, and he put his mantle over Elisha, and this was a signal that Elisha was to be his disciple and was to follow him. Elisha asked to first be allowed to go back, and literally, if you look at the Hebrew, to kiss his parents goodbye. Can I go home and kiss my parents goodbye? That's what he asked for. So Jesus is drawing on that very thing, which is so very appropriate, And I'll point it out in a few minutes what the connection is. Elisha asked to first be allowed to go back and kiss his parents goodbye. That is what the man in our text is essentially asking Jesus to do. He says, I want to go tell them goodbye, but it's basically the same thing. Now in the case of Elijah, Elijah gave Elisha permission to go back and kiss his parents goodbye. But as soon as he did, Elijah said to Elisha, what have I done to you? In other words, Elijah saw that he was about to make Elisha's life just like his own. Cut off from family, always on the run, always hounded, sought out and persecuted. People trying to kill him. But Elisha went back home, he sacrificed a pair of oxen, he gave the meat to the people, in other words, he turned it into a peace offering, and then he followed and served Elijah until the day he witnessed Elijah taken up into heaven. Look at the difference between that call and what Jesus says here. Every devout Jew, anybody who had ever attended the temple or the synagogue, knew the story of Elijah and Elisha. Jesus is making it clear therefore, I am no Elijah. And what's so appropriate is it ties into the previous verses. Do you remember what James and John wanted to do when that Samaritan village rejected Jesus? They wanted to be able to call down fire from heaven. Do you remember it was Elijah who called down fire from heaven to consume the prophets of Baal. And there, Jesus rebuked James and John because Jesus is no Elijah. And here again, he rebukes this man because Jesus is no Elijah. Jesus is God. And when God tells you to follow, you must follow. You shall have no other gods beside me. If this man is to follow Jesus, then he must follow without looking back so much as to say goodbye, mom and dad. For to do so would be proof, Jesus says, that he is not fit for, that he is not suitable for the kingdom of God, like Lot's wife, like the Israelites in the wilderness. If you would follow Jesus, forget what is behind and reach forward to lay hold on what lies ahead, what Jesus holds out to you in himself. As Paul writes, as I already pointed to, press on toward the goal of the upward call of Christ Jesus. Of God and Christ Jesus. It is not to the palaces of kings of this earth. for which you are headed. There is no time to waste on waiting to bury the dead. Jesus called these no room for divided commitments. For you, Jesus didn't look back to heaven with regret. He didn't look back. For you, Jesus didn't avoid the suffering and rejection that lay ahead of him. For you, he was abandoned by the Father to suffer the punishment of hell. Therefore, for him, His call means that you don't look back. Jesus' call for you to follow him begins with a change in your heart. He isn't calling you to a superficial change or a change back to a traditional way of thinking. He is calling you to change the way that you look at what is most important and to change the priorities of your life. He is changing your heart. The lost are perishing. They're going to hell because they haven't believed. And how are they going to believe if they have not heard? And how are they going to hear if someone isn't sent? There is no time to waste. If He is calling you to the city, to the farm, to the factory, or the home, then it must be to the work that He would have you do in the city, on the farm, in the factory, or in the home. If He is calling you to care for your parents, it must be care that you do in your following of Him. If He is calling you to go to another city or another country, it must be as one who is following Him. He doesn't leave you to just take up what you want to do, or to do what someone else wants you to do, as if being a minister of the gospel or a missionary is the exception. He says, follow me. And especially if he is calling you to go and preach the gospel of the kingdom. There are changes in our culture and there are changes in the church. Some are superficial and some are substantial. As when men and women are not stepping forward to consider whether Christ might be calling them to follow him away from their temporary home where he has placed them in this world to a temporary home in another nation. Such changes are substantial, especially when there is a shortage of qualified men to be pastors and missionaries to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. If he has called you to stay here, then you had better be following him here. And I don't mean because your mother and father don't want you to move anywhere else. I mean you had better be staying because Jesus has called you to stay. However, if Jesus might be calling you to go elsewhere, you had better pray and listen, because if he is telling you to follow, you must follow. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank and praise you for Jesus who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We thank you for Jesus who took us when we were dead in our trespasses and sins and raised us to new life. We owe Him everything. We are nothing without Him. Every gift that we have has been given by Him. Everything that has happened in our lives that could remotely be called righteous is because 100% because of Him and His sanctifying work by the power of the Spirit through the Word. And all the sin is ours. Dear Father, we pray that by your grace you would work in us to change us and cause us to repent of our sins and flee to Jesus Christ and find in him the one who gave up glory to live like us, to be among us, so that by your grace he could pay the penalty for our sins, that he could be the righteousness of God for us, so that one day we might share in that glory which he has gone ahead to prepare for us and to lay up for us in the heavens. Therefore, Father, we pray that you would make us a people. We said it at one time in our life that we turn our back on this world. We pray that you would make us a people who would truly Endeavor to turn our back on this world every single moment of every single day you give us. That we would not look back to Sodom and Gomorrah. That we would not look back to Egypt. That our goal would not be something in this world. But like Paul, we would look and strain toward the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus and what he has laid up for us. Father, by your grace, we pray that you would not only do this in us, we pray that you would do this in every Christian believer we know. We pray that you, by your grace, you would raise up others from the dead and that they too would pursue and love Jesus, the Lord, their God, with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind and all their strength. And therefore, Father, we pray that you would use us to speak to them. Because we know that we are surrounded by people who are going to hell and how Will they hear unless someone is sent? Therefore, Father, we pray that you would make us people who would say, here I am, Lord, send me. But Father, we know as well that there is a tremendous shortage right now in the OPC for ministers of the gospel. We know that there is a shortage of missionaries in almost every organization relative to the growing population of the world. And therefore, Father, we pray that by your grace, you would call out men and women everywhere. That we would, in fact, all be willing to go, because we're willing to go wherever you want us to go. Whether it's our neighbor next door, or the person who waits on us at the grocery store or the restaurant, or whether it's a fellow worker, or whether it's our dear, dear aunt, who we love so much, but who we know doesn't know Jesus. We pray that you would send us and use us, but we pray especially that you would raise up men, young men even in this congregation, to be ministers of the gospel, to proclaim the kingdom of God, who would follow Jesus wherever he would take them, even if it's very, very far away from Charlotte, North Carolina and Matthews. We pray that you would raise them up, even if you would take them to the other side of the earth, because we know, Father, that Matthews is not our home. Our home is that place where Jesus has gone ahead to prepare a place for us. And that is the home we long for. We pray, Father, by your grace that you would glorify yourself through us and through your servants and raise up ministers and missionaries of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.