Scripture Luke 9:62
Jesus replied, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.
Please
Stand – look backwards – imagine walking forward while you are looking back.
I love to look back which is why I have thousands of pictures and videos. When I go to Columbus, I love visiting the important places of my childhood – house – schools – church – “Goldhart Park”
Goldhart Park is no longer there. Would I love to see it and run the bases once more? Sure! But the fact that it is not there never takes away from what I experienced there and helped shape who I am. I look the same way at former church buildings and even amazing ministries I have been a part of that no longer exist.
Jesus is saying they were important for the time, but if you keep looking back Jeff, you will do two things I don’t want you to do. First you will miss seeing the people and the ministry right in front of you; that may or may not look anything like your past ministry did. Second, and even more important, you will miss creating a great past for others. If you don’t make the present and future the best it can be for others, you will have lived a life stuck in your pleasant memories while trying to force others to live there with you, instead of giving them great experiences and memories to bring them closer to Jesus.
One of the best lines I ever heard in a sermon was by Nate Adams who spoke about how to plow a straight line….“Don’t look back or even at the ground beneath your feet, look at an object in the distance, perhaps a fence post or a tree and head “straight” for that object.”:
Those experiences of the past have no more breath – they are dead. However, the result of those experiences still live within me and allow me to look forward with renewed vision for what God is doing today and tomorrow.
Let’s look at
the context for our scripture verse today.
Luke 9:51-62
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
DON’T ALLOW
YOUR PAST SIN TO KEEP YOU FROM
SERVING AND FOLLOWING JESUS NOW!
Peter, do you love me – your sin is forgiven, don’t look back, follow me
Story of Lot’s
wife looking back.
Genesis 19:17, 24-26
The men of Sodom and Gomorrah did detestable things in the eyes of the Lord who was about to destroy them showing mercy on Lot and his wife and daughters forcing them to flee before the cities were destroyed….vs. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" vs. 24-26 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities — and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
JESUS DESCIBED
THE END TIMES AND THEN SAID:
Luke 17:30-33
It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
ILLUSTRATION
Two 30 year old women
1) father died when young, mother physically & verbally abusive, foster parent sexually abusive, yet she eventually became happily married with two beautiful children.
2) An idealic childhood with siblings she loved, and she did well in school. Her 3rd grade teacher, for some reason, told her that she would never amount to anything. That one event affected her deeply for the next 18 years as she struggled to find self-worth.
You would think the current life would be reversed based on past experiences. What was the difference? One allowed the past to keep her hostage in the past and the other allowed her past to inspire to look forward and make a new life for herself.
Don’t
let your past make you a victim of your current circumstances; ALSO, don’t only
rely on the benefits you have inherited, and never work for the good of others.
Pastor
Jeff Ridnour kept calling to say they have all kinds of food in a garden they will
never eat. He became pastor at Faith UMC late this summer and inherited an
overflowing garden already planted and was able to literally reap the benefits
of someone else’s hard work.
John 4:34-38
"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
The question is not how much am I reaping from what others have sown, but how much am I plowing and planting in a straight line because I am looking forward to Jesus who I am following, not looking back and saying Jesus catch up to where I am going as I plow in very crooked lines that benefit no one. I want to plow straight ahead where Jesus is going which will allow others to reap the benefit of my time on earth.
CONCLUSION
The Apostle Paul put it this way:
Philippians 3:7-14
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
So, you put your
hand to the plow, and you look at the horizon, fix your eyes on that singular
object - the cross the one with an empty tomb nearby. You put your hand
to the plow, and you look at the cross where the blind will see, and the dead
will be raised, and the broken will be healed, and the hungry will be fed.
…respond to Jesus invitation when he says, “Come, follow me!”
Jesus replied, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.
I love to look back which is why I have thousands of pictures and videos. When I go to Columbus, I love visiting the important places of my childhood – house – schools – church – “Goldhart Park”
Goldhart Park is no longer there. Would I love to see it and run the bases once more? Sure! But the fact that it is not there never takes away from what I experienced there and helped shape who I am. I look the same way at former church buildings and even amazing ministries I have been a part of that no longer exist.
Jesus is saying they were important for the time, but if you keep looking back Jeff, you will do two things I don’t want you to do. First you will miss seeing the people and the ministry right in front of you; that may or may not look anything like your past ministry did. Second, and even more important, you will miss creating a great past for others. If you don’t make the present and future the best it can be for others, you will have lived a life stuck in your pleasant memories while trying to force others to live there with you, instead of giving them great experiences and memories to bring them closer to Jesus.
One of the best lines I ever heard in a sermon was by Nate Adams who spoke about how to plow a straight line….“Don’t look back or even at the ground beneath your feet, look at an object in the distance, perhaps a fence post or a tree and head “straight” for that object.”:
Those experiences of the past have no more breath – they are dead. However, the result of those experiences still live within me and allow me to look forward with renewed vision for what God is doing today and tomorrow.
Luke 9:51-62
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
SERVING AND FOLLOWING JESUS NOW!
Peter, do you love me – your sin is forgiven, don’t look back, follow me
Genesis 19:17, 24-26
The men of Sodom and Gomorrah did detestable things in the eyes of the Lord who was about to destroy them showing mercy on Lot and his wife and daughters forcing them to flee before the cities were destroyed….vs. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" vs. 24-26 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities — and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Luke 17:30-33
It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
Two 30 year old women
1) father died when young, mother physically & verbally abusive, foster parent sexually abusive, yet she eventually became happily married with two beautiful children.
2) An idealic childhood with siblings she loved, and she did well in school. Her 3rd grade teacher, for some reason, told her that she would never amount to anything. That one event affected her deeply for the next 18 years as she struggled to find self-worth.
You would think the current life would be reversed based on past experiences. What was the difference? One allowed the past to keep her hostage in the past and the other allowed her past to inspire to look forward and make a new life for herself.
John 4:34-38
"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
The question is not how much am I reaping from what others have sown, but how much am I plowing and planting in a straight line because I am looking forward to Jesus who I am following, not looking back and saying Jesus catch up to where I am going as I plow in very crooked lines that benefit no one. I want to plow straight ahead where Jesus is going which will allow others to reap the benefit of my time on earth.
The Apostle Paul put it this way:
Philippians 3:7-14
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
…respond to Jesus invitation when he says, “Come, follow me!”
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