Sermon: First Things First
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Luke 9:59-60
“First Things First”
Series: “The Cost of Following Jesus”
Jim Rohn was one of the pioneers of motivational speaking in the last century, the precursor to such household names today as Tony Robbins or Zig Ziglar or Wayne Dyer. Like most motivational speakers, Rohn had his share of famous quotes, but the one that will always stand out to me is his quote that goes: “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way; if you don’t, then you’ll find an excuse.”
It’s like the man who one morning asked his neighbor if he might borrow his lawn mower. “No,” the neighbor replied, “I’m going to play golf this morning.” The would-be borrower at first accepted his neighbor’s answer, but then as he was walking away, it was as if a light bulb went off in his head. “Wait a minute,” he said, turning back to the neighbor, “What does your playing golf have to do with my borrowing your lawn mower?” To which the neighbor replied, “Nothing, but if you don’t want to do something, one excuse is as good as another.”
Some of us have made an art form out of crafting an excuse to get out of stuff we don’t want to do. We’ve become so proficient at the task that we can come up with a reason to excuse us from almost anything, even the harsh demands of discipleship. But what we fail to understand is that even when our excuses for not following Jesus make perfect sense to us, Jesus sees through them and will not let us hide behind them in the least.
That’s one of the lessons we can glean from this passage that is before us this morning from Luke’s Gospel. You’ll remember from last Sunday that Jesus and his disciples are journeying through Samaria on their way to Jerusalem, where Jesus will bear the cross for the sins of the world. At this point in the journey Jesus is met by several “would-be” disciples. I call them “would-be” because while they approach Jesus with the apparent intention of joining him in the journey, their intentions are to do so on their terms and not his.
Take, for example, this man “would-be” disciple who is before us this morning. Jesus has just extended a call to him to follow in his way and how does the man respond? “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” To me that response sounds like much more than an excuse; it sounds like a good reason. I can’t imagine Jesus expecting anyone to leave such an important obligation unfinished or to throw it off on another individual. After all, what does the Fifth Commandment say? “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you” (Ex. 20:12). And there is nothing more dishonorable and disrespectful than to fail to give one’s parents a proper burial. I know what I would have said if I had been in Jesus’ shoes. I would have told the man, “Well, then, you get a pass.”
But that’s not what Jesus said. “Let the dead bury their own dead,” Jesus told him. “But you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.” On the surface, that response sounds incredibly callous, until we probe deeper and see that the man was more than likely offering up an award-winning excuse. You see, chances were that the man’s father had not yet died. Chances are that he was still very much alive so that what the man was simply trying to put Jesus off until it was more convenient for him to embrace Jesus’ call. He was willing to follow Jesus on his terms, but he was not willing to follow Jesus on Jesus’ terms.
According to Jesus, by making an excuse, even a championship caliber one such as the one the man came up with, he was in fact manifesting his own spiritual lifelessness. By not making the Rule of God a priority in his life, the man was on the verge of condemning himself to an everyday experience of meaninglessness and insignificance. But not accepting the invitation to join Jesus in the most important work in the world, the man was robbing himself of the chance to experience life in all its abundance. That’s why Jesus told him to go and “proclaim the Kingdom of God.” Joining God in what God is about in our world is to be the ultimate priority in life. Once we get that right, everything else in our life falls perfectly into place. But once we get it wrong, nothing in life will ever work out. I call it “button theology.” It’s like the buttons on your shirt or your blouse or your coat or your jacket. If you get the button at the top fastened correctly, then all of the other buttons are no problem. But if you ever get another button fastened in place of the first button, then you end up looking like a disheveled mess.
This is a season of the year when we pause and take the time to check our buttons. But in order to make sure that we’re being honest with ourselves and not simply deceiving ourselves with our topnotch excuses, we have to commit ourselves to the discipline of focused and fervent prayer.
I know what you’re saying. “I find it hard to pray that way,” you may be thinking. “I get so distracted when I pray.” And you aren’t making another set of excuses. You’re just telling it like it is.
But think about it this way. Might those distractions be the very things that are keeping you from becoming the disciple Jesus is calling you to be? When you feel the need to pray about your relationship to Jesus and your mind suddenly gets diverted to your labor or your leisure, your finances or your family life – to the promotion at work or the state of your tennis game or your investments or your dysfunctional household – perhaps what you need to do is to seek the Spirit’s guidance in how you might serve God’s agenda in those very places so that instead of allowing those places to dictate the level of your discipleship, your discipleship is dictating what are clearly important places in your life. It goes back to the priority of putting first things first so that you get other things thrown in instead of putting those other things first and losing your life in the process.
Someone has described it as the difference between living by a clock and living by a compass. When you live by a clock, you’re living in a way that is dominated by appointments and commitments and schedules and activities – all the things that drain us of our joy because of how we have overscheduled our everyday life. But when you live by a compass, you’re living in accordance with vision and values, principles and purpose –something that represents a direction that is overarching and transcendent.
It’s the difference between dead people who are paralyzed by having to bury their own dead and those who are alive because as they live each moment of each day, they are open to ways of proclaiming the Kingdom of God.
So, which kind of person do you want to be?
At the end of the day, we fail to be disciples only because we do not decide to be. And when you don’t want to do something, you’ll always find an excuse, even sometimes an excuse that has a pious ring to it. But if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way, one that requires you to lean upon Jesus and make him the ultimate priority in your life. When you really want to accomplish something, you’ll follow Jesus, for he alone is the way, he alone is the truth, and he alone is the life. No one will ever come to the Father, but by following hard after Jesus. And if that’s not motivation enough, then I don’t know what else it is that you’re looking for.