Skip to content 2. Biblical Allegiance: Who is the Master of My Life? Sep 7 · 27 min ...more
September 7, 2023 · 27 min · Life Redefined
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Rev. Paul Jeyachandran leads the Intentional Disciple Making Church (IDMC) Movement, which is all about calling churches back to its disciplemaking roots. Visit us at idmcmovement.com
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0:00 We are on a series of sermons called Life Redefined. Today is the second 1 the second session on the topic of0:13 Who is truly my Master in life? In this series, we are exploring the 8 key questions for spiritual formation.0:25 Last time we studied the first 1, Who is God? It is biblical theology. Now, the right understanding of who God is will eventually cause0:37 us to ask this question, who is truly my master in life? Biblical allegiance. Because 1 of the core things that you and I need to understand is0:49 that Jesus is not only our Savior, but Jesus is also our Lord. Lord meaning master. Lord meaning our rightful owner. The Bible1:01 says he purchased us with his own precious blood. That's why as a believer, our life doesn't belong to us, our life belongs to him. So we need to rightfully give our lives1:12 to Lord Jesus Christ, and acknowledge him as the master of our lives. But how many times we actually find Him intrusive? When He1:24 tries to claim His rightful place in our lives, we sometimes resist, we sometimes give excuses, and we hold back, and we even go to the point of denying1:35 Him Lordship over our lives. So in this session, we are going to explore who is truly my master in life, biblical theology,1:47 biblical allegiance. Who is truly my master in life? Story was told of George Shulls. George Shulls was1:59 the Secretary of State during the Reagan presidency. And whenever he was appointing a new ambassador representing US in any part of the2:10 world, he would invite these new ambassadors to his office, and he would have an interview with them. Now, during the interview, he usually gives them a test. He has2:22 a big globe, they say a large globe in his office. So he will tell these newly appointed ambassadors, I want you to go and identify your country in that globe.2:35 So many of these ambassadors will go there and spin the globe, and then they will point the finger to the country to which they are being sent. And he would say, I think you've forgotten2:46 this. That country is not your country. That's the country for which you have been sent. But that country is not your country. See, only during his stay as2:58 the Secretary of State, he has given this test to so many ambassadors, only 1 of them passed. And that was his oldest friend and closest friend. His name is Mike3:10 Mansfield. He's the only 1 who spin the spun the globe and pointed to United States and said, that's my country. Now George Shultz always says3:22 this, that 1 should never forget when you're over there, that is not your country, that you are representing United States. Now, how often we as3:34 believers, we forget who we represent? Where do we belong to? Where is our citizenship? And sometimes we forget who is truly our master in life. That's why3:45 as people of God, we got to examine this, because our earthly carnal state of living will cause us to make ourselves the master of our own lives,3:57 cause us to think that we are the shapers of our own destiny. Listen to me carefully. You know, Thomas Kempis said it like this, your beloved is such that he will not accept what belongs to4:09 another. He wants your heart for himself alone, to be enthroned therein as king in his own right. If you but4:20 knew how to free yourself entirely from all creatures, Jesus would gladly dwell within you. He said it so beautifully. In other words, Jesus wants4:32 your complete allegiance. He doesn't want your heart to be divided. He doesn't want your allegiance to be divided among what you find as an earthly God or an earthly4:44 master or something else that is taking his place. That's why you and I need to examine our heart. Is Jesus truly Lord of my life? Is he truly the master of my life? Or am I4:56 ruled by self? Or is something else or someone else is taking that place in my life? I I want to give you a principle to consider. Anything that competes with Christ for our5:07 loyalty must be forsaken as an idol. Let me say that again. Anything that competes with Christ for our loyalty must be forsaken as an idol. So today, I want to5:19 study a passage of scripture with you, where Jesus addresses what it means to be a true follower of Christ. You know, in this passage, there are 3 would be disciples5:31 that came to Jesus. And for 1 of them said, I will follow you wherever you go. And to another, Jesus said, Follow me. And they all gave excuses.5:43 And through those responses, we can actually see their heart condition and how Jesus challenged them. So I want to examine the 3 challenges that5:55 Jesus gave us from this passage. Let's look at the passage. Luke chapter 9 and verse 57 to verse 62. As they were going along the road, someone6:06 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 lay6:18 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,6:30 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 1 who puts his6:42 hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. See, when we studied this text, we can see the response of the people to6:54 Jesus's demand. And as a result, Jesus gives them a challenge each. Luke doesn't address whether these men obeyed the challenge of7:06 Jesus, because that's not the point. The point is for us to examine what excuses are we giving before the Lord and what challenge does Christ require from us? Because7:18 if we fail to address this, it will compromise our true discipleship. So what does Jesus challenge? The first challenge is Jesus challenges our comforts.7:30 Look at verse 57 and verse 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 holes7:42 and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has no way to lay his head. Now, just take a step back and examine this. Here is a man who enthusiastically comes before Jesus7:54 and says to him, Jesus, I want to follow you. Wherever you go, I want to go. Now, as a pastor, if someone comes and tells me, I want to go wherever8:05 you go, I want to join in what you're doing, what would be my response? My response would be, the more the merrier. Come, gladly join, let's go. But Jesus8:17 examines not just what this man requested, but examines his heart. Because even though he enthusiastically says, with passion, I want to go wherever you go. His heart is8:29 craving for the security of this world. His heart is craving for the comforts of this world. And Jesus examines this and he challenges him on this 1 principle. Take8:41 down this principle. The principle is radical discipleship involves costly sacrifice. Whenever you want to follow Christ, it's going to require a8:52 costly sacrifice. See, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, he actually says this, salvation is9:04 free, but discipleship will cost you your life. I want you to pay attention to that. Martin Luther said this, A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, suffers nothing, is worth9:15 nothing. In other words, to follow Christ is costly. But this man has not counted the cost. See Jesus is addressing this man's condition of heart. He says, I'm9:27 not going to Jerusalem to go and stay in Hilton hotel. Instead he says, I have foxes have holes, birds of the air has nests, but the Son of Man has9:39 nowhere to lay his head. In other words, there's no security. There's no comfort. Will you still follow Christ when he there is no security, there's no guarantee of security, and9:51 there is that he asks you to step out of your comfort zone. You know, the life of a disciple is sometimes, you know, considered as10:03 a pilgrimage, a journey of life. You know, this, in the in 1 of the, US hiking trails, the website10:15 had a comment section, and after people finished their hiking, they left some comments. Now, this is from Bridger Wilderness Trail comments in 19 96, Oregon,10:27 USA. These are some of the comments that people left. They said trails need to be wider, so people can walk while holding hands. Too many bugs and leeches10:39 and spiders and spider webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid of these pests. Chairlifts need to be in some places so that we can get to wonderful views without10:50 having to hide them. The coyotes made so much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals. A McDonald's would be nice at the11:02 trailhead. Now, these are the comments left by people who are going on a hiking journey. I want you to listen to me. Sometimes it's like this, Lord Jesus, I want to follow you. I want to give you my heart. I11:14 want to follow you wholeheartedly. But then, we are still craving for comfort and still craving for security. Therefore, we never take that bold11:26 step of faith to obey God. I want you to listen to me. Sometimes when Jesus asks you to step out and serve Him, you may have to let go of certain comforts.11:38 You may have to let go of certain securities. He's asking you to step out and serve. What would your excuse be? Oh, that would infringe on my time with family. That would that would11:50 cost me my my my earning capacity. I want you to listen to me. We could come and settle in a place where we are comfortable and we crave for those securities. And12:01 when those are challenged, we just resign and we just let others do it. I want you to think about this. I want to ask you this question. What are the areas in your life where Jesus12:13 might be challenging you to step out of your comfort zone? What are some of the areas that you can think of where Jesus is challenging you to step out and obey Him12:25 and do what He has called you to do. Because radical discipleship involves costly sacrifice. The second thing that Jesus challenged is this.12:37 Jesus challenges our commitments. Look at verse 59 and verse 60. To another he said, follow me. Now the first man came enthusiastically to Jesus and12:48 said, I will follow you wherever you go. But to the second man, Jesus said, you follow me. Now this man says, but he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my13:00 father. And then Jesus responded by saying, leave the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Listen carefully.13:13 In the in in when you look at it superficially, it talks about a man saying, Lord Jesus, I need to take care of my father.13:25 Has the father died? No. The father will die 1 day, but he's elderly. That means as a Jewish man, he's committed to looking after and honoring his father. So13:37 that means he says, Lord Jesus, let me first go bury my father, and then after my father is dead and after all the funeral rites have been completed, then I will follow you.13:50 Now what did Jesus say? Let the dead bury their dead. It's a play on word here. Let the physical dead bury that the those who are spiritually dead bury the physical14:01 dead. Let the spiritual dead bury the physical dead. That's what he's saying. And then he says, as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Let me give you the principle. The principle is this,14:13 radical discipleship involves complete surrender. Complete surrender. I want you to think about this. Here's a man who says, I have commitments. You14:25 know, this word commitment is is something that we are all very familiar with. Why? Because we all are overly committed. If you14:37 carefully examine your life, you would say if you carefully examine your life, you would say, pastor, I have family commitments. I14:49 have work commitments. I have financial commitments. I have study commitments. I have social commitments. I got church commitments. I got ministry commitments. We are15:00 all committed. And everything is pulling us to give attention and time and energy. But I want you to listen to me carefully. Sometimes when we are15:12 so overcrowded, right? Sometimes we have so much things on our plate that we have added, either because we overestimate our capacity, or15:24 sometimes we think, deceptively we think that by being so busy means I must be so important. So we add a lot of things to our plate, or sometimes we have15:35 just added to our plate things that God never earmarked for us. Listen to me carefully. We are committed to the point that we never asked him what does he want us to be15:47 committed to. So as a result, we are pulled aside by all these commitments that we carry. You know, I want you to think about this because in this modern day and15:59 age, the 1 thing that people all give us an excuse is family. They say, oh, my family commitments, my family. Until the point, if16:11 you're not careful, your family actually becomes an idol that you worship. See, earlier I gave you a principle. Anything that competes with Christ for your loyalty must16:22 be forsaken as an idol. Sometimes we can idolize our own family. And we can use the context of family to do whatever we16:34 want, and it will sound good. Let me highlight some examples. I've heard over the years people over leverage. That means they get into greater debt to buy a certain house.16:47 Or they over leverage to go on holidays, they borrow to go on holidays, expensive holidays, exotic holidays. Why? Oh, under the guise of saying, Oh, I want to provide the16:58 best for my family. Oh, I want to make sure that we as a family can spend time together. But these are pretends. Why? Because deep down, what is driving them is not actually commitment17:10 to family. What is driving them is an emptiness of their soul, where their ego, their pride, their comparison, their envy, their jealousy is driving it. Greed is driving it. Covetousness17:22 is driving it. But sometimes we can cloak it by saying, Oh, it's for my family. I want to provide the best for my family. Can I humbly say this? Examine. See, sometimes we have all17:34 these commitments because we are driven by the culture of this world. We have bought into the system of this world. Oh, my children have to go to this class, that class, that class, that class until their17:46 schedule is so overcrowded that we have no room for them to be discipled, for them to be trained in Godly ways. In fact, we don't even go to church. Why? Because they gotta go swimming, they gotta do this, they gotta do17:57 that. I want you to listen to me carefully. Examine your commitments. Because sometimes you could be so overly committed to the point where you would say no to18:09 Christ. No wonder Jesus said in Luke chapter 14 and verse 26, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and18:21 children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Pay attention to the language that Jesus used. He says, if anyone comes to me and18:33 does not hate, circle that word hate, does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters. Is Jesus calling us to hate our parents?18:45 He cannot contradict the word. He's not saying, do not honor them, reject them, don't look after them. He's not saying those things. What is he saying? When you love God,18:57 don't when you love God wholeheartedly, when you love Him, your love for your family comparatively looks like hate. I want you to think about this. That means when God19:09 and family are up in in in, are demanding your time and attention and and your allegiance, where does your loyalty lie? Is it to family or to God? That's the question19:21 you and I, we need to examine. Who do we follow first? Who do we obey first? Who do we submit to? Who do we surrender our life to? See, you and I, we need to acknowledge even the family19:33 that God has given us is a family that he has given us to steward. It belongs to him. We are not the owners. He is the rightful owner. My spouse, my children, they belong to God.19:45 I'm mere steward. I steward this, my spouse for the marriage, for the married life, for the season that I'm married. I steward them. I'm stewarding the19:57 children as long as they're going to live under my roof. But these are all stewardship. That's why the more we recognize these are all stewardship, the more we recognize that our life doesn't belong to us, our life20:09 belongs to him. He is the master. He dictates the terms upon which I live my life. Therefore, my commitments are to be dictated by him. See, sometimes we forget whose we20:21 are. Whose we are dictates who am I? That's why you and I, we need to remind ourselves. In Revelation chapter 5 and verse 9 and verse 10, in20:33 the when the when in John sees in heaven, they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scrolls and to open its seal, for you were slain and by your20:44 blood, you ransomed people for God. In other words, you purchased people for God. We are people who have been ransomed, purchased, redeemed. We don't belong to ourselves,20:56 we belong to the 1 who died for us. No wonder Paul writes and he says in second Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14 and verse 15, for the love of Christ controls us because we21:08 have concluded this, that 1 has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who21:20 for their sake died and was raised. I want you to listen to me. Christ died for us. Therefore, we might live for him.21:32 Christ died for me so that I can live for him. And I make it my aim to please the 1 that I no longer live for myself, but for the 1 who21:44 loved me and gave Himself for me. Listen carefully. If Jesus comes to you and says, I want you to take the gospel and go to this unreached people group, and I want you21:56 to go there and plant yourself, learn their language, and speak the gospel. Spread the love of God. Share the gospel. People will hate you. People will criticize you. People might22:08 even kill you, but I want you to do this. Would you do it? Or would you say, Lord, I just bought a brand new puppy. I need to look after it. I can't let it go. I can't leave it in the kennel. I22:19 can't go. Listen carefully. Your commitments, your commitments. Sometimes those are the excuses we give, isn't it? Or, I don't want to22:31 serve, I can't come in to serve God now. Why? Oh, because I have children that are young. And as the children grow up, oh, they got so many commitments to go to, so22:43 many classes. I got no time to do what God calls me to do. I'll wait later. Oh, 0, now they are in uni, you got free time. No, finally, I have time for22:55 myself. So that things I have never done before. So now I have to prioritize me. Then finally, they all are married and gone. Can you do it now? Oh, wait till I'm23:06 retired. And after you're retired, all my grandchildren have arrived. I have to look after them. When will you ever serve God? I want you to listen to me carefully. Your commitments will23:18 always be there, but your commitments cannot compete with God. The first guy chose convenience over consecration. The second guy chooses commitments, existing commitments,23:30 rather than to consecrate his life before God. Let me give you a reflection question. Have you cluttered your lives with your own agendas and priorities that God is crowded out?23:43 What areas of your life is Jesus calling you to surrender to him? Examine this. And when you truly understand this, you understand what discipleship is all about.23:55 You know, a story was told of a hen and a hog. A hen and a hog are very good friends. They go everywhere together. And 1 day as they were roaming in the24:06 village, they came near to the village church, and they saw a sign on the church board. This is what it says, Today's24:18 sermon topic is how can we help the poor? So the hen and the hog reflected on this question. How can we help the poor? You know, the church helps the poor. We need to contribute24:30 something. We need to give them something so that they can help the poor. So the hen came up with a brilliant idea. The idea is, we can serve them breakfast, bacon and24:42 egg breakfast. To that, the hog protested. It says, Hen, for you, it is just a simple, small contribution. But for me, it24:54 is a complete surrender. In other words, for me to provide bacon and egg, I need to lay down my life. Sometimes, that is what is required in our25:05 discipleship. Radical discipleship involves costly sacrifice. Radical discipleship involves complete surrender of our time, our talent, our treasures25:17 before God and say, Lord, where do you want me to pour my energy? My money, my attention, my time, and my energy. Where do you want me to pour it? The third thing that25:29 Jesus challenges is this. Jesus challenges our conditions. In verse 61 and verse 62, look at this. Yet another said, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell25:41 to those at my home. Jesus said to him, no 1 who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. I want you to listen to me carefully.25:53 Here's a man who comes before Jesus and says, I will follow you, Lord. And then he gives the biggest but. I want you to circle that word but. Because now26:04 he's going to contradict his willingness to pursue Christ. He says, this is what he says, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.26:16 Let me say farewell to those at my home. And what did Jesus say to him? No 1 who puts his hand to the plow looks back and is fit for the kingdom of God. What is the principle here?26:28 The principle here is this radical discipleship involves continuous submission. In other words, you submit again and again when the demand is placed upon you, you26:40 submit to the Lord again and again. You come and acknowledge him and say, Lord, I'm here to obey you and I'm going to obey you wholeheartedly and I'm going to obey you immediately and I'm going to obey you lifelong.26:53 See, as a pastor, what 1 thing in my journey of life I've realized is this, to obey God once is easier. But to obey God continuous
Paul Jeyachandran
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